


Thanks for the Memories

by Soulburnt



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Discussion of Season Six, F/M, Light-Hearted, Post-Series, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:27:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulburnt/pseuds/Soulburnt
Summary: Buffy beats up Angel after learning that he’s lied to her for years.Angel and Buffy had an Eternal Love.  The Slayer never really examines that great truth, never really has the time.  But after Sunnydale collapsed, taking her staunchest ally with it, Buffy finally has time to think, to deal, to accept.  And when a memory spell brings back a twenty-four hour period that her perfect Angel stole from her, she bravely faces up to the truth about her Eternal Love.  Six months after the Hellmouth closed, a furious Buffy storms into Wolfram and Hart to get back some of her own, never knowing how literal that can be.The story begins with a grieving Buffy and becomes progressively lighter (possibly giddy by the end).
Relationships: Spike/Buffy Summers
Comments: 9
Kudos: 118





	1. 148 Days

London  
October 2003

***

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Buffy curled her fingers around the neck of the wine bottle, knowing that she didn’t look edgy and cool the way Spike always had with his whiskey. One, because he wouldn’t drink lame strawberry-flavored wine, and two, he could drink a whole bottle of whiskey without turning into a blubbering drunk. It took a lot more liquor to get him to this pathetic, sentimental state.

She wiped her face and lifted the bottle in tribute. “Shpike,” she slurred and knocked back another drink, making a face. 

He loved her faces.

He loved her, somehow, cruel bitch that she was, fully and unconditionally.

The wine was warm and, truthfully, horrible. The Slayer leaned over the arm of the sofa – divan, she’d heard it called here in England – and set the bottle unsteadily on the end table, next to the glass she’d ignored. She wasn’t even sure why she’d bothered to bring it from the kitchen.

It was Saturday. Buffy had taken that as a sign, even. Friday had been 147 days since the Hellmouth collapsed, since everything changed, since he’d broken her heart. That meant that today was 148 days and didn’t count. And she didn’t have to go into her office at the Council, so she could stay home and wait for him. Alone, because Dawn was out. She’d curled the ends of her hair, once again long the way he liked it, and done her makeup really nice.

And then she’d waited.

She propped against the couch and squinted at the digital clock on the videocassette player. 12:03.

One hundred and forty-nine days.

Tears welled and spilled over. She wished she could lie to herself a little longer, could chalk it up to time zone differences. But that wasn’t it.

Spike wasn’t coming back.

She’d lost him. She’d pretended and hidden and avoided and sidestepped and fucking withheld, and now he was gone. Because she didn’t want to believe a vampire could change, since that vampire hadn’t been Angel. Spike started as her enemy, and she never would admit he was her ally and friend by the end. She’d made everything between them be sordid and awful, lashing out and acting out until he finally broke.

And that’s when he really showed who he was, doing something that her special vampire Angel never bothered to do.

Spike had loved her, supported her, been loyal to her, more than anyone in her whole life. At the very, very last, she’d finally understood that time had run out, had panicked and blurted out the words she knew he wanted to hear.

She hadn’t meant them.

Not at the time.

Four days after he burned to ash, Buffy realized that she loved Spike.

It was a terrible memory, so she wiped her face on the rough fabric of the couch. Better to remember him, not that.

Spike was – had been gorgeous. She never told him, but he was. The whole package, hard body to soft hair, but especially his face, his dear face. Those cheekbones, that full lower lip, his deepest blue eyes that expressed every emotion in his great heart. His nose…

His nose…

Wait. What did Spike’s nose look like?

Pointy, if she was looking down over his shoulder. His nostrils curled a little bit, she knew that, because she’d loved how they flared. His nose was straight, head on. But wasn’t it kind of Roman-looking? 

All of that couldn’t be right.

Buffy sagged against the sofa, drunk and shocked, her cheek pressed against the nubby upholstery. Spike’s nose. Part of Spike’s face. As many times as she’d punched it, she had to know it. She couldn’t forget it.

But she had.

She didn’t have a single image of Spike. Not that she hadn’t looked. There had been a few pictures of him with Dawn in their house on Revello Drive, but that was buried and washed over with the water that pooled in the crater. The photos he’d kept from all his years with Drusilla burned when Buffy destroyed his crypt with grenades. The Slayer didn’t notice the sob of regret that dragged its way up her throat at that memory. 

The archives of the Council of Watchers had several inaccurate sketches and blurry photographs, but those had burned, too, when the headquarters blew up. Not even Andrew had any images; he said he didn’t have bandwidth to upload things at the end.

Spike might as well have never existed, as little evidence as there was.

She was sobbing now, her mouth open and making the arm of the couch wet, her body rocking back and forth. Buffy wasn’t conscious of any of this. All she could manage was her fruitless effort to remember the shape of Spike’s nose.

She loved Spike, and she was forgetting him.

She was deeply, hopelessly, truly in love with her faithful, amazing champion, and he was dust.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

***

Buffy woke with a hangover on Sunday morning. To be fair, so did a substantial percentage of Londoners. I passed out, she realized, sitting up from the couch. Thank God.

Her mouth had a horrible taste in it, and her tongue felt fuzzy. She staggered up the narrow stairs to the even narrower shower stall and turned on the water. At least the water here was instantly hot, no dodging the cool spray until it warmed. Not that there was room to dodge.

He isn’t coming back. It’s 149 days, and the 148th counted, and I hate it here in this cold, narrow place, and he isn’t coming back.

Buffy leaned against the wall of the shower, distantly amazed that she had any tears left.

By the time Dawn got home from spending the night with a school friend in Knightsbridge, Buffy had herself pulled together. “Hey, sweetie,” she greeted her with a kiss. “Did you get any sleep at your sleepover?”

“A little.”

“Have fun?”

“The shopping was fun,” Dawn allowed with a yawn.

“What happened?” Buffy asked, immediately on alert.

“Nothing.” Dawn shrugged. “It’s just… It’s always going to be weird here.”

“You miss the States?” she asked sympathetically. When her sister nodded, she stroked her hair. “I’m working on it.” They didn’t have much money saved up so far, because they had to have new everything. At least Giles took care of their housing.  
“I know. I don’t blame you or anything. We both thought it’d be fun.” 

Truthfully, Buffy couldn’t remember making a decision. Giles filed for emergency documents for them from the State Department, and as soon as those came through, the Summers women got on an airplane with him that landed in London. They’d been here ever since. “Think you can take a nap?”

Dawn nodded and gave her a vague smile as she picked up her bag. Buffy knew she’d probably been up half the night giggling with her friend – Emma? Gemma? – but the trip back to the tiny row house Giles found for them often left her feeling down. She wasn’t sure why exactly, if it was the scope of the city or the way public transportation made Dawn feel small and isolated. Maybe it was the sound of the accents, especially people from North London.

Determined to cheer them both, Buffy walked to the market while Dawn slept and got ingredients for authentic tacos. Back in the little kitchen, she smiled as she opened the single brand of seasoning that passed muster. She and Dawn had a bunch of rocky moments as they acclimated to a new country, but the event that may have saved their family happened at a ‘Mexican’ restaurant. 

The two L.A. natives were used to food trucks and hole-in-the-wall taquerias with exquisitely flavorful food. Neither had any idea that it would be impossible to find authentic tacos in London. Their first clue had been the server telling them about the daily ‘tack-o’ special. It got worse from there.

She and Dawn laughed all the way home at how bad it was. Buffy excused herself to go to the bathroom and found her sister in tears when she got back. A lot of it was homesickness, but that had been in July, so there was a lot of grief, too. They had a bonding cryfest in the living room – parlor, here.

They’d never visit their mother’s grave again. Or Tara’s. Anya didn’t even have one. All of the Dawn Chronicles, her singed diaries, were gone. The girls who’d crammed into their house over the crazy last few months were scattered across the globe. Or dead. Gone or dead, like their friends.

Neither of them mentioned Spike.

Now, taking out one of the frozen packages of flour tortillas Buffy begged Faith to ship to them from Cleveland (fragile corn taco shells would never survive the trip), she wondered if they should talk about him. Wrapping the flat tortillas in damp paper towels, Buffy set the microwave and began to chop lettuce and onions with Slayer efficiency, thinking of how hearing a particular London accent made her feel. Yeah, maybe they should talk about him.


	2. Tacos and Tears

“Why would I ever want to talk about him?”

Or maybe not.

“I-I thought you might miss him,” Buffy began.

“Miss the asshole who tried to rape my sister?” Dawn spat. She shoved her plate away. The smile she’d had when she woke up to the most authentic tacos London could boast was gone.

“I raped him three times.” Buffy said the words almost inaudibly, her eyes on her own plate.

Dawn’s snit was effectively interrupted. “What?” Her voice was sharp, stunned.

“What we did… He never…” Buffy took a breath. “I’ve never told anyone this, you know? And you shouldn’t have to hear it. But no one else…” She lost it for a moment, covering her face with her hands. She took in a shaky breath. “No one else ever even liked him, but you did. Until I ruined it.”

“Ruin… You?” Dawn shook her head. “No, he ruined it, Buffy. He tried… He hurt you –” She reached for her sister’s hand.

“I hurt him worse. Remember how he looked just before my birthday, when you made the wish to the vengeance demon? I did that. I beat him. I b-beat him until he looked worse than he did after Glory got through with him. It took him weeks to recover. He just laid there, and I didn’t stop punching –” Buffy stopped on a gasp, unable to say the last, damning part aloud.

She hadn’t even checked to see if he survived.

Buffy drew in a breath to calm herself. “It wasn’t the only time, but it was the worst. And I won’t tell you the rest, just… he told me ‘no’ three times, and I didn’t listen. Or stop. He never lifted a hand to make me, Dawn. He didn’t – What he was trying to do that night in the bathroom…” Buffy made herself look at her sister’s stunned face, made herself face one of her own worst memories. “What he was trying to do wasn’t… that. But the only way we… connected was… So that’s all he knew, and I…” 

Dawn was shaking her head, looking both angry and stubborn. “You’re right, I don’t want to hear it. But, Buffy, you have to see things clearly, own what happened. What Xander said –”

“Xander didn’t see anything. Spike left before he got to the house.” Buffy sniffled and got an angry look herself. “And I’m not excusing anything or misunderstanding. I know what attempted rape is, because someone else tried: Xander.”

Dawn sagged away from her, stunned once again. “What?”

“Not long after we moved to Sunnydale. That whole hyena spirit possession thing,” Buffy waved this away; just typical Hellmouth weirdness, “and he was strong enough to try for what he wanted. I knocked him out. And you know what he did after, Dawn? He pretended he didn’t remember anything. You ever known a spell that caused amnesia afterwards?” Buffy asked bitterly. They both knew magic didn’t work that way. “So you can take that into account along with whatever else Xander said.”

She looked away, her teeth clenched. “Since he didn’t remember, he didn’t have to apologize or stress over it. But I had nightmares. Don’t tell me I don’t know what rape looks like when it’s staring me in the face.” 

Or what true remorse looked like in the aftermath.

Dawn reached to touch her hand tentatively, and Buffy looked away. “I-I never knew.”

“No. You didn’t. Because, unlike Xander, I didn’t want to burden my baby sister.”

“He just pretended it hadn’t happened?”

Buffy nodded, forcing her muscles to relax. It took her months to be comfortable around Xander again. 

“He always wanted to be your boyfriend, didn’t he?”

That made her close her eyes. “I guess so. He always wanted to have final say over my boyfriends, anyway.”

Dawn nodded, thinking back to things Xander had said over the years. “I’m sorry that happened to you.” That’s what you were supposed to say. She might also kick Xander in the nuts the next time she saw him. “How was it different from what happened with Spike?”

Buffy held out her hand, palm up, and waited until Dawn took it. “The look in their eyes. Xander had kind of a smirk, because he thought he had enough power to take what he wanted. Spike was… desperate. He wanted me to take him back.” She closed her eyes. “I’d… trained him that ‘no’ was just another noise I’d make.” When she opened them, Dawn was staring at her in confusion. “If he actually had stopped any of those other times, I’d have hurt him. Bad.”

“Trained him? Buffy?”

“I called the shots in the relationship, Dawn. Not him. I wouldn’t even let him call it a relationship.” She bit her lip and looked away from the growing horror in Dawn’s blue eyes, the color so like Spike’s. “You probably don’t remember, because all that stuff with Willow and Warren was right after that. I was furious with him because of Anya and because the secret finally came out. I got thrown onto a tombstone and hurt my back that night. All kinds of bad things, all at once. And Spike wanted to talk.

“I never thought of it like r-rape, just, it was different because my back… I mean, he wanted sex, but,” and she couldn’t tell Dawn he wasn’t even hard, couldn’t go into that kind of detail with her sister, “it was for… connection.” God, they were both so fucked up by those months. Sure, Spike had said terrible things, but those were nothing compared to the way she behaved. He wasn’t the one with the soul. 

She chanced a look at Dawn. “But I knew he got it, what it… amounted to, his… attempt. And I got to tell him one last time he was a monster.” She closed her eyes briefly and drew in another steadying breath. 

“I kind of pushed it aside like I did all our fights. That’s what we did, you know? Remember how I took you to his crypt so you’d be safe, I guess it was the very next night? If it had been… that, do you think I could have let you near him? And that was way before I had any idea of what Spike went to do. Get his soul, I mean. To try to atone.”

Dawn’s eyes were wide and steady. Then her mouth firmed. “It doesn’t matter. He might have… cared about you, but that’s it. Just you. I thought he… But he didn’t.”

Buffy closed her eyes again. God, how could she have not realized? She was vaguely aware that Spike had taken care of Dawn the summer she was gone – or, more accurately, they’d taken care of each other. She just never asked about it, or about why Spike was shown the door so abruptly by the Scoobies afterwards. She never noticed how much her sister missed the vampire after her return.

She hadn’t noticed anything, really, caught in her own numb misery.

“He loved you, Dawnie. He did. He… I was ashamed, and I told him I’d kill him if he ever told that… about what we were doing, and I told him… I told him to stay away from our house. From you. That he might cost me custody.” 

She still remembered the look on his face after she released him from his promise. When she told Spike not to come to the house, he reminded her that he was sworn to protect Dawn. ‘Well, I’m back, so you aren’t necessary. She doesn’t need you any more than I do.’

Buffy tried to sniff, but her nose was too blocked. She was so tired of crying. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. He really was your friend. He loved –” An extra-loud sob took away her words.

Her sister pulled her hand away, staring at the Slayer in undisguised horror now. “He was my only – I mean, after Halloween Janice and I never really… And Tara moved out.” Dawn’s lips peeled back from her teeth, remembering how alone she’d been the winter after Buffy came back, how utterly unloved and invisible she felt. So much pain that a vengeance demon swooped down on ripe prey. “I had no one – certainly not you.” She stood up from the table, giving her sister a look of contempt as the first tears rolled down her face.

Buffy listened to the footsteps pound up the stairs, to the door slamming behind Dawn. The walls were thin, so she could hear her sobs. She tried to keep her own cries silent out of some bizarre respect for Dawn’s grief. After a few minutes, she pushed her chair back and looked at the table, at the uneaten tacos. Buffy wondered sometimes if she was destined to hurt everyone she loved.

***

“Dawn?” 

No answer, but she didn’t expect any. Buffy put her palm flat against her sister’s closed door, remembering how she’d done the same once at Spike’s crypt, one of the few times she hadn’t just kicked her way in.

“Dawn? I’m back from patrol. Are you okay?”

Silence. But Buffy could almost hear her bitter ‘of course I’m not.’

London didn’t really need Buffy patrolling the streets, not with a dozen other slayers in town. She hadn’t wanted to leave Dawn alone. She just wanted to huddle on the couch, allow herself to grieve some more. But she was on the schedule.

Buffy tried again. “I know it probably doesn’t matter, but I’m sorry. I… I didn’t have much emotion back then, not for… But I should have realized how lonely you were. We’d already lost so many people, and I shouldn’t have… I’m so sorry.”

Silence.

“If I could give you that time back with him, I would. I know every minute…” Buffy thought of how she castigated herself for the summer she ran away after Acathla, for the months lost that could have been spent with her mother. How could Dawn ever forgive her for taking away one of her only friends, for that short, precious time before death permanently parted them?

She closed her eyes and sniffled. “I wish every day I could go back and do things differently. For you, for Tara. For Anya and Xander. For Amanda and those girls buried in the back yard.”

Sinking down beneath the weight of it all, Buffy ended up curled up against the bottom of Dawn’s door. “And for Spike. He missed you. Always asked how you were.” Well, he had at first, until she refused to speak to him about Dawn. Until she bloodied his mouth for trying to talk to her.

“I know I don’t have the right, but… It’d be good to talk to you about him. No one else cares, you know? He saved the world down there, because those cave-vamps would have got past us. There were too many of them.” Buffy thought of him in the beam of light, of how he’d looked when he was in sunlight when he found the Gem of Amara. 

Spike was smart; God, he was the Indiana Jones of vampires, finding all those lost relics, the Amara ring, all the pieces of the Judge, the cure for Drusilla. He knew what the cost of wearing the amulet would be. But everyone else just thought he was just dumb Spike, that he backed into a heroic situation, and at least it wasn’t anyone important who died.

“He stayed to close the Hellmouth. He knew there had to be a sacrifice to do it. He was so brave, Dawnie. Don’t forget how brave he was. Giles never acknowledged what I said, that we owed Spike. He’s just glad there’s one less vampire. And Xander never wants to talk about anything to do with Sunnydale.” Xander had taken the first assignment Giles offered, in fact, and he never spoke to any of them nowadays, not even Willow.

“Willow really doesn’t care. We don’t talk about anything, so…” 

Silence.

“So, I guess if you wanted poetic justice” – and Buffy thought of all the books of poetry Spike kept in crypt, of how the volumes must have blazed in the fire after the incendiary grenades she threw ignited them – “you have it. I’ve lost everyone, too.” The thought of how they faded from her life didn’t even hurt, not really, not anymore.

“But you should know. He stood up to Glory because he didn’t want anything to happen to you.” And because he knew that losing Dawn would kill her. Oh, the irony that she was losing Dawn all by herself. “He stayed with you when I was gone because he loved you.”

Silence.

“And you loved him.” Buffy had to pause for a moment to get her breath under control. This wasn’t about her. “And that was so… huge, Dawnie. Because that’s all he w-wanted.” She broke down for a long moment. “Just to be loved. You loved him, and I’m so glad you did. H-he deserved love.”

She’d give anything for the chance to show Spike that she loved him, that her final words were true. Sometimes she thought Dawn, who was so sweet and open, must be made from the best of her. She wished she was more like her sister.

Only silence.

Buffy bit her lip. Time to drag herself to bed.

“You deserve love, too, punkin belly. I love you,” she added in a whisper. For what it was worth. “Good night.”

The Slayer wiped away her tears absently. She really didn’t notice them by this point. Just as she started to pull herself up, she heard Dawn’s footsteps. The door opened, and she looked up at her sister’s tearstained face.

“I-I miss him,” she managed, “and I don’t know if I’ll ever f-forgive you for taking him away b-before he even died,” and fresh tears tracked down Dawn’s cheeks, “b-but n-no one else cares.”

The two sisters looked at each other for a moment, then launched themselves into an awkward hug at the same time. They ended up on the floor just inside Dawn’s room, crying.

“That summer you were gone,” the teenager finally said, “all we h-had was each other. Nobody else seemed to notice how bad it hurt. We’d go visit your grave and Mom’s…” She struggled, but couldn’t say the rest. “A-and can we talk about M-mommy, too?” Dawn managed before she began to bawl.

Buffy nodded, tugging at the strands of Dawn’s hair stuck to her wet face. “I’d like that,” she agreed brokenly.


	3. Share and Share Alike

London

November 2003

“When did you know you loved him?” Dawn asked.

No need to ask who she meant. They were leaning against each other’s shoulders on the couch, heads together, and a showing of The Princess Bride just finished. Dawn watched the movie even more times with Spike than with Buffy.

“You were the first to realize he loved me,” Buffy said, evading an answer and staring at the scrolling credits. “You’re the smart one.”

“That’s right. About time you admit it.” She shifted and sat up on the couch. “I’m hungry – peckish, I mean. There’re some prawn crisps. You want some?”

“Blergh,” was Buffy’s adamant reply.

Later, after they said good night and went to bed, she was left staring up at her ceiling, wishing that this was one of the nights she had patrol. Tomorrow was Guy Fawkes Night, though, and all the slayers would be out then, keeping the revelers safe. Sleep wouldn’t come, not after Dawn’s question.

Four days after he dusted. That’s when she’d realized that she loved Spike.

In a musty, unused room in Angel’s hotel.

Buffy was one of the few refugees who had sole possession of a room at the Hyperion. It was one of the safe things to ponder: Why did Angel have a hotel? How did he own the mansion in Sunnydale, for that matter? Where did all the money come from? 

There were other ponderables, too. Why was Cordelia in a coma? Angel wouldn’t even have the equivalent of a high school diploma, so how did he end up being CEO of a law firm? Didn’t law firms have partners instead of CEOs? And it was an evil law firm, according to Giles, who ranted a lot and often smelled of Scotch in the days after Sunnydale cratered.

That wasn’t something she could safely ponder. She couldn’t think about that final day. Or about him.

Buffy had been alone in her private hotel room when Angel knocked on her door. She knew it was him, because he was a vampire and she could sense him. After a moment, she sat up, but before she could say ‘come in,’ Angel opened the door and did just that.

His hotel, she supposed.

He’d asked if she was sleeping. She hadn’t been, and said so.

He joined her on the bed.

There was small talk, she remembered that, before he leaned in to kiss her.

Buffy put out her hand, stiff-arming him, keeping Angel away.

That time.

And too late.

Because it hurt him; she could see in Spike’s eyes that she hurt him deeply by kissing Angel, by smiling at Angel. She kissed Angel and gave Spike the death sentence, the one Angel avoided, the amulet that could only be worn by someone souled but stronger than human. Angel hadn’t known that Spike had a soul when he came to Sunnydale. He gave her the amulet and a half-hearted offer to wear it, and then left. She would have worn the amulet, or maybe Faith, if Spike hadn’t stepped up and made her admit that yes, he was her champion, he had been for years without ado or acknowledgement. 

But she kissed Angel and he saw, and she laid in Spike’s arms once again without kisses or caresses or anything concrete passing between them. Then his soul blazed with light at the mouth of Hell, lit up everything, incinerated everything. She could fool herself that it was just sunlight, and of course vampires burned up in sunlight, but Buffy was the Slayer and she felt the righteousness blaze forth as soulfire, the very essence of him, and the essence of him was love.

He could love, of course he could, and he’d done everything for her and gone to ridiculous, heroic lengths to try to be worthy, but she felt unworthy, worthless and still she told him what he always wanted to hear, what she always intended to tell him, but he looked at her with such sad eyes and didn’t believe her words and neither did she –

But it was true, after all.

She knew she was in love with Spike, who was dust, sitting on a musty hotel bed, holding Angel at arms-length, four days after he died.

Angel got a little frown on his face. She didn’t know what he was thinking, because he didn’t have a readable, expressive face like Spike’s. Angel was a closed book, full of unknown motives and untold secrets.

He apologized with odd words – “There’s no reason you would think we could…” – before he left with a small gesture of farewell.

And she’d fallen back onto the bed in despair, wondering how she, a Slayer who’d died twice, ever thought that waiting was an option. She’d waited too long, and never acting didn’t stop the pain at all.

She was desperately, wholly in love with Spike.

And he was gone.

***

“Do you – Never mind.”

“Do I what?” Buffy asked, looking up from the weekly report from Slayer outposts. The updates were written by Watchers, remnants of the old Council, and therefore dry as dust. Well, regular dust. Vampire dust was kind of greasy.

Dawn had already brushed her teeth and changed into pajamas – pyjamas, in the UK. “I just… I worry, okay?” she said defensively, as though Buffy had faulted her.

The Slayer put down her report and focused on her sister. “Worry about what?”

“Spike.” Dawn whispered the name. “What if he went to hell, Buffy? Like Angel?”

Buffy left the chair and went to the teenager, settling next to her on the small sofa. She lifted her chin, tucked a strand of brown hair behind Dawn’s ear, and gave her a tender smile. “He’s in heaven.”

“You think so?”

“I’m sure of it.” Buffy gave a decisive nod. “He’s nothing like Angel.” And why hadn’t she realized that in time? “Him, I basically shoved into a portal to a hell dimension to stop a ritual.” The two sisters shared a moment of eye contact, both of them thinking of Willow’s reasoning for finding a resurrection spell. 

Buffy sighed. “What Spike did… What he did was like what I did. He gave his life to close a portal, made the choice to do it. You know where I went after that.”

Dawn’s nod was solemn, but her expression was already brighter. She gave Buffy a tentative smile. “You really think so?”

“I do.” She pulled the teen into a hug, careful of her strength. “I really do.” Because Spike had to be in heaven. If she allowed herself to believe anything different, it would be too much. She’d end up in a catatonic state the way she had after Glory took Dawn.

Buffy let go and gave her sister another smile. “Go on. Get some sleep. I’ll probably fall asleep here, trying to finish this week’s adjective-free list of demons slain by grim slayers.”

“Thanks, Buffy. That actually does make sense.”

She watched Dawn go up the narrow staircase, then moved back to her chair, sighing. She hadn’t been as sure as she let on. In fact, Buffy consulted an expert.

Not far from their house stood a small, lovely church. Once the idea occurred to her, Buffy stalked the building in the evenings until she saw services end and the reverend standing alone. She took her chance and cornered him. Using her best post-resurrection fake smile, she pretended to be an aspiring fiction writer and asked him the theoretical theological question: could a vampire with over a century of blood on his hands go to heaven if he gave his life to save the world? She never mentioned the soul. She’d seen that, and it was obvious where William’s soul belonged.

The vicar assured her that God’s mercy was boundless enough for this, but that the vampire would have to truly repent of evil and ask for forgiveness. Buffy countered this ecclesiastical technicality by posing another question: what if the vampire was too humble to ask, assuming he could never be forgiven? The poor man blinked at the young American with delusions of plausible character development and gave her a bland smile. God, he said, knows what’s in our hearts.

That was enough for Buffy. She knew Spike’s heart was full of love. She left the church with a sense of peace that lasted until she started to think about how she returned after 147 days and hope flickered briefly. She no longer had any hope that she could spend her life with Spike, but knowing that she might one day see him again… 

It was enough, more than she deserved, really.

***

“He was so…” Buffy cast about for a better word, but had to end with the first one that came to mind, “pretty.”

Dawn snorted, her breath puffing out and making a little fog in the air. “He’d give you Death Look #2 for saying that.” They were walking back from their local. Now that they could talk about Spike, they always did.

“Yeah,” the Slayer said fondly, trying to picture that look. He had at least four different ‘you’ve gone too far, missy’ expressions, not that they ever worked on her. Mostly, they just made him look hotter. “Death Look #2 was the sexy one. He was always so sexy, you know?”

“Uh, no.”

Buffy thought about teasing her little sister for the crush she had on him back when Glory first showed up, but instead just bumped her with her arm. “That’s your opinion.”

“Honestly, Joan,” Dawn said, stressing the name, “you probably thought Randy was sexy.”

She giggled, then covered her mouth. Oh, it felt so good to laugh! “Th-that hat!” she managed, and the giggles turned into a deep belly chuckle. “Not even Spike could make that hat sexy.”

Dawn was laughing, too, and took Buffy’s elbow to hold her upright. “And that terrible suit was sooo tight! If he took a deep breath, the shoulder seams would blow out. How did he even get into it? Did he coat himself with axle grease, then just kind of shimmy?”

The Slayer got the mental image of Spike wiggling into tweed, but real memories crowded out the humorous ones: Spike writhing on a bed, her oily handprints all over him; Spike’s hips raising toward her elusive mouth, his fists clenched against the desire to tear through the silk scarves that bound his wrists; Spike shifting restlessly on the bed, trying to persuade her to stay using only desperate eyes because she forbade him to talk.

Supporting her sister by the arm, Dawn didn’t realize that her laughter had turned to tears for a few steps. “Buffy?”

“Sorry,” she said, forcing a smile. “I’m fine.”

“No, you aren’t. What is it?”

“He forgot everything, too, and ‘Randy’ just assumed he was on our side.” She lifted a shoulder. "Even after he knew he was a vampire, he wanted to be on our side. And I never let him. I hurt him so much. I wounded him.” The Slayer wiped her eyes. “I was the monster, even if I was the one with the soul.”

Dawn was silent for a long moment, and when she spoke, it wasn’t at all what Buffy expected. “I asked Tara once if I had a soul.” When her sister stopped walking, Dawn let go of her arm and took another few steps on the sidewalk. She could make out their house now, so she looked at it instead of Buffy. Dawn lifted a shoulder. “She could see auras, and I… I was made, you know, not born.”

“Oh, Dawnie.”

“I have one,” she rushed out the reassurance. “But I worried, you know? Glory said I was evil, then she said I was just neutral, and I heard all so much from you, from Xander and Giles about evil, soulless beings.” She took a breath. “I worried that if I didn’t have one, you wouldn’t want to protect me. And I guess Giles didn’t, did he?”

Buffy made up the distance and took Dawn into her arms, her eyes open and staring against the soft wool of her sister’s coat. “Oh, sweetie. I never knew. I’m so sorry.” Another victim of her blind prejudice, another tender heart hurt because of her reliance on Council doctrine, on Angel’s excuses for his behavior instead of what she’d witnessed for herself. “I love you,” and for just a moment, she hugged too hard, “no matter what. Forever. I’ll always protect you. You’re my sister.” My daughter.

Dawn sniffled, pulling away. “Ow,” she complained, no real heat behind it. “It’s okay. Come on. We’re almost to the house. Let’s get home.”

They went their separate ways at the door, Dawn going upstairs to get ready for bed, Buffy to the couch to see what was on the tube – the telly, she supposed. On nights like this, when she wasn’t scheduled for patrol, it took a while to wind down enough to sleep.

“Buffy?” Dawn called from the doorway. She was still wearing her clothes, but she’d washed her face free of makeup. Right now, with her eyes wide and scared, she looked fourteen again. “Can I tell you something?”

Clicking mute on the remote control, Buffy scooted toward the arm of the sofa, making room. “You can tell me anything.”

Dawn settled on the cushion, staring at the television. “I… I think it was my fault,” she admitted in a soft voice. She shot a look toward her sister, just for a second.

She’s terrified, Buffy realized. “What’s your fault?” she asked, even as she put a soothing hand on Dawn’s back.

Even now, Dawn still could fling herself into the melodrama. “I didn’t know!” she wailed. “All I knew was that you’d been crying, like, all the time! I thought you broke up because of Anya at first, so I went to the crypt.” She met Buffy’s eyes fleetingly, then looked down, biting her lip.

“To see Spike?”

Dawn nodded, her hair falling over her face. “He was just sitting there, drinking, not about to do anything to make things right. I told him how unhappy you were.”

Buffy couldn’t help but flinch as she realized. “The day after we found the cameras?” That day?

Her sister nodded, miserable and apprehensive. “Yeah. I swear I never thought anything bad would happen. I just wanted…” Dawn trailed off, unwilling to say how she just wanted her sister and her vampire to be together, so all of them could be a happy family. It sounded so stupid now.

“Listen,” Buffy said in her best stern mother tone, “nothing is your fault, okay? What happened, it’s on us. Me and Spike.”

“But if I hadn’t –”

“Honey, I promise you, nothing is your fault. You went to see Spike because I was hurting. I was, you know. I did miss him. I was just in such a bad place, the only thing I could think of was to end things. If I’d been better, stronger…” Buffy sighed. “Do you think I don’t do the same thing, Dawnie? Think over what happened and play what-if?

“But sometimes I think…” She pulled the unresisting body against her own, tucking Dawn’s head against her shoulder so her sister couldn’t see her face draw into a rictus of pain. Buffy stroked the shiny chestnut strands. “I think something was steering Spike to get his soul back. Because I really don’t think anyone else could have worn that amulet, not for it to work like it did for him. He was a champion,” and her voice was edged with bitterness, “and it was what he needed.”

“You mean,” Dawn pulled away and Buffy hastily rearranged her expression into something comforting, “like a weapon? Like you got the Scythe?”

“The amulet was his weapon?”

“No. His soul.”

The Slayer blinked. “Uh… maybe?” Something in Dawn’s words sounded like a deeper truth, and for a moment, she absolutely hated the Powers That Be. Maybe all she was to them was a springboard to propel Spike to redemption, the same way they’d dangled her in front of Angel. The bastards never sent her a single Slayer dream at the end, certainly not one to warn her that amulet was going to kill the unkillable William the Bloody. She was the champion, and any sacrifice should have been hers.

“So,” Dawn’s voice was small, “you don’t blame me?”

“No,” and now Buffy’s voice was sure and strong. “And don’t you blame yourself, either. You were just trying to do right by two people you loved.”

She nodded vigorously, utterly sincere. “I just wanted you to talk.”

That’s what Spike had said, too, when he first came in. Buffy drew in a tiny breath. “I don’t do enough of that. That’s one of my what-ifs. But I’m trying to be better with the talky.”

“You are better,” Dawn said hastily. “And with listening, too.”

Buffy smoothed the long locks over Dawn’s shoulder. “Remember when Willow trapped us underground, and I told you I wanted to show you the world? It means everything to me that we’re getting to do that, sweetie. I know you’ll be going off to college soon, so I’m going to enjoy every minute we have together.”

“You should go back to school, too.”

She started, almost immediately shaking her head. “Me?”

“You.”

“The Council needs me.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be your job.” Before Buffy could protest, Dawn covered her hands with her own and gave her a beseeching look. “You aren’t happy. You think I don’t notice? I always know. I mean, it’s not as bad as the Doublemeat Palace, but… You’re not happy, Buffy.”

“That’s not because of the job.”

Their eyes met for a long moment after the quiet statement, and Dawn simply gathered her into a hug.


	4. Going Home

“Buffy?” Dawn said again.

“Hmm?” She looked up from her tandoori chicken. The sisters had takeout too often – takeaway here, she should say. “Sorry. I blanked out.”

“I asked if you saw Willow today.”

Buffy shook her head. “No. Wait, I take that back. I saw her as I was heading out.” She picked at a bit a chicken. “We waved at each other.”

“Do you mind if I ask –” Dawn stopped abruptly and waited until Buffy met her gaze. “Did you two have a fight or something?”

“What? No.” She shook her head again and sat up, realizing that Dawn was upset. “No fights.”

“Then why does she avoid you? Avoid us?” There was pain in the big blue eyes.

Buffy sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Did the spell with the Scythe… Do you think it changed her?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly, “I think it did. But not in a bad way.” Buffy pushed her chicken aside. “That was a lot of power to channel, good magic for a change. Giles thinks Willow was drawing power from the Hellmouth most of the time, that it darkened her own magic. That’s why she had so many problems with control.”

Dawn snorted. “Or maybe because she’s a control freak to begin with.”

Buffy made a face, puffing out her cheeks and looking sideways as she widened her eyes. “That could be part of it, definitely.”

“I just…” Dawn sighed and shoved away her curry. “We were all together back in Sunnydale, even lived in the same house, and now I never get to see anybody. I mean, I know Xander’s in Africa, but we never get together here. I see Andrew more than I see the Scoobies.”

“Andrew’s kind of a Scooby now.” She knew she was evading the issue. “I guess we’re all just so busy.”

“Pfft.” Dawn added an eye roll to her scoff. “Busy. Because saving the world from the First Evil was so light and easy.”

Later that night, once the leftovers were in the fridge and the table was clean, Buffy found herself thinking about Dawn’s question. Willow was avoiding them, or at least she avoided Buffy. Giles did, too. She wasn’t a mind reader or anything, but she thought it probably went back to the coup the group staged after the failed attack where Xander lost an eye.

All these months later, Buffy had stopped suggesting getting coffee or inviting her friends over for dinner. After their rainchecks and maybe-laters, it was clear that Willow and Giles weren’t interested in reestablishing the close bonds they’d had in California. She just wished she knew why.

It wasn’t as though she could stay angry with them. Buffy forgave her friends for worse. An apology would be nice – at this point, even acknowledgement that there was a wedge between them would be nice – but wasn’t necessary. And if it wasn’t the coup, she only had one other idea of what it could be keeping them away.

She had been right about Spike.

Willow resented Spike for taking up Buffy’s time back in Sunnydale and for stopping the First Evil. She’d stiffened visibly when both Faith and Buffy gave the vampire credit for destroying the army of Turok-Han. Activated or not, the small squad of new slayers would have been overwhelmed by the sheer number of the ancient demons. Willow wanted credit for defeating the First Evil. While the spell to create slayers was amazing, it hadn’t won the war. And dealing with the aftermath of that spell, with the small percentage of girls who didn’t want the strength or misused it… Like Willow, Buffy was all for female empowerment, but the witch shouldn’t have expected universal praise for the spell, not after seeing her struggle for years with a sacred duty she never had the opportunity to accept or decline.

As for Xander, he loathed Spike even before he’d slept with Anyanka. Buffy wasn’t even sure why he hated demons so much, the blond vampire most of all. Spike and Xander had been roommates over the years, had played pool together and fought beside each other. Yet Xander never softened toward Spike for long. She thought the key was in how much joy he got from bullying him after the Initiative crippled him with the chip, something to do with having more status or power than Captain Peroxide. But that led to very uncomfortable thoughts, because she’d felt the same glee and satisfaction at targeting a humbled Spike.

Giles hated the blond vampire, as best Buffy could figure, for having influence over her. Not that Spike tried to guide her to or away from anything; he just stood by whatever decisions she made. Decisions that sometimes didn’t have Giles’ approval. Either that, or Spike was just a substitute for the hatred her Watcher felt for Angel.

But Spike was gone. Their issues with Spike shouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter that she’d been right to keep him alive, keep him on their side. She hadn’t even done that much. Spike had come over to her side without any encouragement at all. In fact, Buffy had done her best to drive him away until last winter, when it finally sank in that he truly loved her, that he fought for a soul as proof rather than for the ability. She saved him, sure, rescuing him from the First Evil, but he saved her in every way that counted, and then he’d saved them all. 

And he was gone.

If the Scoobies were feeling guilty for the coup and were afraid that she couldn’t forgive them, if they were just acting awkward and unsure, then things were okay. Time would smooth that out, even if they never apologized. With so many things they never discussed, what was one more?

But if they were upset with her for choosing Spike after vacillating for so long, if they couldn’t see that she never chose him over them, just chose him in addition to… Well, tough. She was right, they were wrong, and there was a non-existent Hellmouth and a crater in the desert as proof. 

And a hole in her heart they’d never see.

***

“How was school?” Buffy asked, giving Dawn a tired smile as she dropped her handbag on the table just inside the door.

Dawn looked up from the couch, where she was reading a book balanced on one knee and keeping a pencil poised over the notebook on her other knee. “Blah. How was work?”

“Blah.” Buffy sank down on the far cushion. “Giles is still trying to buy that place in Scotland. Well, there was some good news.”

“Oh?” Dawn raised her brows. The two sisters were closer, but some days were chillier than others.

Yesterday, Dawn hardly spoke beyond noncommittal grunts. Then, just before walking up the stairs to bed, she looked over her shoulder and said, “I would have helped you with him. When he was so hurt after you rescued him. ’Cause I could always get him to feed that summer you were gone. But I didn’t know he still cared about me, so why would I care about Spike?” Dawn glared at Buffy and flounced away.

Buffy gave herself a mental shake and got back to the current conversation. “The financial people finally got access to all the accounts that froze when the old Council blew up. Giles is way happy.”

Dawn frowned at the book for a moment, then closed it. She set everything aside and turned to sit with one leg drawn beneath her, facing her sister. “Do you think he’ll do what he said he would?”

After Sunnydale became a crater, the new Slayers had no real option besides going to Los Angeles. It was the nearest big city with an international airport, and it had an ally. Even if Giles hated Angel, Angel owned a hotel. While they stayed there for the strange period afterwards, the Watcher fretted about a lot of stuff, including the frozen Council assets. 

Everyone else avoided her, still on eggshells after kicking her out of her home, but Giles’ need to talk seemed to trump his chagrin. Or she, in her mute state of shock and grief, made a good audience.

He told Buffy that the Council had hundreds of millions of pounds, none of which had been available to save the last potentials. He’d been bitter about that, because he used a lot of his ‘capital’ and should be compensated. Giles even said she should be compensated for her loss. He meant the house, she knew, not all the actual losses she’d suffered. Giles went on to say that she deserved a bonus for every time she saved the world. All this came in the first several days, when he’d been drinking rather a lot.

Would he really give her money now? These days, Giles was the epitome of a stuffy bureaucrat, constantly in a meeting or on his way to one. Buffy gave Dawn a lopsided smile. “Probably not.”

“I want to go home. Back to California, I mean.” Dawn’s gaze was penetrating. “What about you?”

“Not Los Angeles.”

“No.” Dawn shrugged. “Santa Barbara, maybe? Pismo Beach. Or San Luis Obispo.” 

Her eyebrows went up. “Sunnydale without the Hellmouth?”

She didn’t bother being defensive about it. “Why not? Don’t you miss it?”

Uncrowded beaches? A walkable town? Foggy mornings, warm days, and breezy evenings? The smell of bougainvillea and seasonal wildfires? Buffy closed her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered.

“What about your work?”

Hundreds of slayers in the world now. She trained a lot of them. She also sat at a desk and made patrol schedules. She attended a numbing amount of meetings. Other people could do those things. Buffy was honed to fight gods and primal forces. 

Everything right now was politics. The other slayers and the watchers would think she couldn’t hack it. They would gossip about her losing it, about post-traumatic stress and breakdowns. They’d talk about how she was just pouting that her idea of independent Slayer-led cells was outvoted in favor of an academy. Or they’d speculate that she couldn’t work as part of a team, forgetting that she’d pioneered the concept. 

She would be free of all that, except for her own sense of duty. Buffy felt a dizzying wave of relief.

“I can retire, except for emergencies.”

Dawn considered her for a moment, something brittle in her eyes. She picked up her notebook and turned to a fresh page, then wrote something. Ripping the sheet loose, she handed it over. “Then we need money.”

Buffy looked at it. ‘Two million pounds, not dollars.’ Dawn had underlined pounds twice. She frowned in query.

“He owes us. You know he does.” Dawn’s voice was hard. “After telling you that you should kill me before Glory could do her ritual? After what he did to Spike with Principal Wood? After leaving? He owes us. The Council owes you. You’ve died. That much money, that’ll put us both through college, with plenty left over.”

College? Buffy hadn’t seriously thought about continuing her education. Staring at the words, she squirmed, thinking of how Giles would look when she asked him for money. “I don’t know if I can just ask him for –”

Dawn stood abruptly, leaving her books and walking away. “Make him do what you want. Just pretend he’s Spike.” Her sister flounced away once again, taking the stairs two at a time.

Some days were chillier than others.

***

“I can’t remember what his nose looks like.”

Dawn didn’t say anything for so long that Buffy was surprised when she spoke. “I don’t, either. I mean, Spike’s nose was…” She gave it some thought, her artistic bent giving her a better chance at remembering it than Buffy had. “It was masculine. A lot of his face was… well, pretty, like you said. His eyes and mouth, and really his bone structure. But his eyebrows and his nose were…”

“Manly?” Buffy suggested. That was certainly the word she’d use to describe Spike.

Not Dawn. “Strong.”

They were curled up in sleeping bags, zipped together for warmth. They had two days left in London, and all the furniture was gone. Still hostile after Buffy forced him to give her the compensation he’d promised (“Over five million dollars,” she’d crowed to Dawn with glee after demanding three million pounds, a million for each time she’d died, noting that she could have asked for a million for each apocalypse averted), Giles had sent in men to ‘store’ it the day before.

“His jaw was strong.”

“Not his chin. Too pointy.”

“Only sometimes.”

They lapsed into silence for a while. Dawn shifted on the single pillow they were sharing. “Do you think there’ll be lots of ghosts?”

“I hope not. No Hellmouth.”

“No, I mean…” She trailed off, trying to think of the right words. “I mean, being back by the ocean, with the smells and the way the sunshine looks… Do you think we’ll see a woman with curly hair near a gallery and just for a second think: Mom?”

Buffy gave her a sad smile in the semi-darkness and brushed her fingertips across Dawn’s smooth cheek. The movers took the blinds, too, so the streetlight spilled into the empty bedroom. “I already do that. See her everywhere, I mean.”

“Me, too,” Dawn whispered. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against Buffy’s.

The Slayer thought she’d fallen asleep until Dawn spoke up a few minutes later. “Do you think Giles will come to say goodbye?”

Buffy shook her head. Not after his withering scorn regarding her demand for money. Not after buckling to that demand. “No. Anything official, I guess would be Andrew.” 

Official liaison Andrew had been very helpful, in fact. He moved their money to an American bank with branches in California and even arranged airline tickets. Dawn hadn’t wanted to stay in England any longer, just wanted to be home in the States in time for Thanksgiving. She took her exams for the quarter early and passed; Dawn would start in some as-yet unknown high school as a senior.

“I kind of wish we weren’t having lunch with Willow,” Dawn said suddenly. At her sister’s surprised look, she lifted a shoulder. “She’s not the same. Part of it is Kennedy, making her all ‘posh’ and everything, but it’s really the ‘oh, I’m so wise, I’m a white witch’ thing.”

“Better than what she could be,” Buffy pointed out.

“Yeah, well, she might think she’s Tara, but she’s not, not even close.” Dawn was lost in thought for a moment. “It’s a shame we can’t ask her for a memory spell. She did them all the time.”

“Memory spell?” Why would they want one of those?

“To help us remember him.”

“World of no,” Buffy said, her voice heavy and bitter. 

“Oh.” The word was simple, but contained the same fear of having their memories erased ‘for their own good.’ Willow might just as easily decide they’d be better off not remembering Spike. Dawn groped for her sister’s fingers and gave them a squeeze. “We’ll just help each other remember, then. Keep him alive that way.”

“Together,” Buffy agreed.

***

“Do you ever think about how Spike grew up here?”

“Sometimes.” Buffy smiled sadly. They were waiting for the taxi they’d called. Willow wanted to meet them for lunch before they left. “A lot of times, I’ll hear a man speaking with that accent and almost turn around.”

Dawn shifted to get away from the seam of the carpet that ran along the middle of the stairs. The two of them were on the same step, watching the street out of the bare window. “The past few weeks, I’ve wandered around some, looking for places he might have been.”

“Where he grew up?”

Dawn shook her head. “No. He said his family house burned during the Blitz in World War Two. But, you know, places he might have gone. Clubs or theatres. But I think things have changed too much for what little information I got out of him.” She brightened. “I did go the bridle path in Hyde Park. He rode his horse there.”

Buffy leaned away so she could turn and look at her sister. “Spike rode horses?”

“Well, duh. No cars back then.”

“No, I mean – It’s just, he was a street thug, right? I never thought about him having a horse.”

Dawn just stared at her, her brow furrowed. “You still believe that crap in the Watcher’s Diaries?”

Buffy opened her mouth, but the word ‘yes’ wouldn’t come out. “He told me once,” she had to wet her too-dry lips, “that he was always bad.”

“Of course he told you that, Buffy,” Dawn said. She sounded weary. “Because he never believed you’d care about who he really was.”

“Who he really was?” she echoed.

“Buffy…” Dawn trailed off, shaking her head. “He learned to cook for me, the summer you were gone. He had to learn how to, like, make bacon without burning it and stuff.”

“Well, vampires don’t eat,” Buffy said, feeling like that was obvious. Then she hunched her shoulders. “Well, I mean, I know Spike ate, but just like blooming onions.”

“God, Buffy, he wasn’t always a vampire.” The dumbass remained unspoken. “I mean, he never learned to cook because his family always had a cook.”

“Like… a servant?”

“William was rich – well, ‘comfortable’ is the word he used, which is rich people code for loaded.”

“Spike was rich?” she asked doubtfully. Spike, who had squatted in a crypt?

Dawn nodded. “And educated. I mean, you never noticed how he could read so many of Giles’ books? I know I caught him reading Greek and Latin, and he quoted something in French once.”

Feeling defensive, Buffy quickly put in, “He knew how to speak Fyarl.”

Dawn nodded. “Yeah, he knew a bunch of demon languages.” Her mouth curved in a grin. “He said Valley girl was a demon dialect of English.”

Buffy smiled, too, but it faded into something sorrowful. “I never really got to know him.”

“Well, at least you treated him right after he got his soul. Not like me.”

“Stop beating yourself up, Dawnie. And I didn’t. Treat him right, I mean. Better, but not right.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, either.” She bumped her shoulder against Buffy’s. “Oh, I think that’s our ride.”

“I’ll be right in,” Buffy told Dawn. She watched her sister trudge into the empty row house, then turned back to Willow, who had stepped out of the waiting taxi. Lunch had been more fun than she expected. “I’ll miss you,” she said, giving her old friend a hug, careful not to hurt her.

“I’ll miss you, too.” Willow hugged her back, hard. “I’m kinda envious, you know? I miss the States.”

She pulled away to look at her. “But you fit in so well here! And: Cambridge.” And her work with both the Council and the Devon coven. And Kennedy’s huge flat in Notting Hill. She’d made a life here in the way the Summers sisters never had.

Willow shrugged. “I know. It’s fun for now. But after I finish my degree… Who knows?”

And Buffy plunged in, feet first, lying and flattering without knowing she was going to do it. “Wil, can I ask you a magical ethics question?”

“Uh… sure.”

“I can’t remember what Mom looked like.” She went into ditzy Buffy mode, gesturing and rolling her eyes. “I mean, we have the old pictures that Aunt Arlene sent us, but nothing from the time in Sunnydale.” The tears that came to her eyes were genuine, though. “None from the way Mommy looked at the end.”

“Oh, Buffy.” Willow pulled her into a hug again. “I’m so sorry.” When she let go of her old friend, she looked puzzled. “I just don’t know what this has to do with magic and ethics.”

“Could you… help me remember? I mean, your memory spells are incredibly powerful.” Buffy brushed tears from her cheeks. “I just want to remember how she had her hair. The dress she wore on her last d-date –” Buffy covered her mouth, realizing that she did want those memories, too, the details that were lost. 

“I’ll check for a spell,” Willow promised. “If I can’t find anything tonight, I’ll keep looking even after your flight.”

“Thank you,” Buffy said, taking her hands and giving a gentle squeeze. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.” Maybe Wil would get around to it as a Winter Solstice gift.

But Willow delivered the very next day as she and Andrew accompanied them to the airport in a Council van. “Here you go,” she beamed, while Dawn and Andrew were using a luggage cart outside the terminal as a scooter. She handed Buffy a clear crystal. “I found a recall spell that should work. I may use it myself if classes get rough. It won’t be just your mother,” and for a moment, she sounded anxious, a lot like her younger self, “but everything for the last ten years or so. Good and bad. You shouldn’t be, like, obsessively dwelling on anything. Just better recall. Clearer memories.”

“That’s perfect.” Buffy turned it over in her hand. “What do I do?”

“Just crush it when you’re somewhere safe, like before you go to bed.” Willow smiled. “The spell used a lot of herbs, but I couldn’t see giving you a, you know, bag of weed to carry through customs. So, I cast it almost all the way, but directed the energy into the crystal.”

“That sounds like so much work,” Buffy said, knowing how Willow liked praise. “Did you have to look for it a long time?” She listened for a while as the witch spoke, her eyes going between Dawn and Andrew’s antics and the redhead. This had once been her best friend; they’d made up last year and regained some of that closeness.

Then Willow had voted to kick Buffy out of the leadership and out of her own damn house. They were never going to be close again. Of all the people living in her home, only Faith offered a heartfelt ‘sorry,’ and only Dawn ever really apologized. She told Buffy the full story of how Spike stormed in, told off everyone, beat up Faith, and went after her. The Slayer got new reasons to cry over losing such loyalty and love.

They hugged outside of security, with both the Summers bestowing kisses on Andrew’s cheeks that left him glowing. Then they entered the queue. The witch and junior Watcher were gone before the sisters reached the x-ray machine, heading back to their busy lives.

Once Buffy and Dawn were waiting at the gate for the call to board, Dawn asked about her conversation with Willow. “Remember that memory spell?” Buffy told her sister how she’d explained to Willow it was for remembering Joyce. “If nothing goes wrong,” she finished, standing up as their flight was called, “you can try it, too.”

“I’ll ask you a bunch of questions after you use it,” Dawn promised, “just to make sure you still remember that you can’t really trust red-haired witches.”

***

Two days later, plus the extra hours they’d gained by flying west, Buffy and Dawn were in a fourth-floor condo in Santa Barbara with an ocean view. Buffy signed a two-week agreement, which would give them plenty of time to look for a house. The sisters sat at the kitchen table, which was covered with wrappers from a taco truck and glossy catalogs of homes for sale.

“This one is nice,” Dawn said, shoving a booklet toward the Slayer, one finger on a photo of a house in San Luis Obispo. “Four hundred thousand.”

“I had no idea houses cost this much,” Buffy grumbled, reading over the text. Two bedrooms, attached garage… “How did Mom manage?”

“I think prices are lower on a Hellmouth,” Dawn noted in a dry tone.

Buffy pushed the real estate catalog back. “Circle it. We can check it out.”

“How?” Dawn asked. “Neither of us has a driver’s license.”

She sighed. “I’m too young to rent a car. We’ll have to buy one and practice driving so we can take our tests.”

“Maybe we can just hire a car service at first.” She brightened. “A limo! Think how that’ll impress the real estate agents!”

Buffy shoved away from the table. “Two days back in Cali, and you’ve gone Hollywood,” she teased. “I’m off to bed.”

“Jetlag still kicking your butt, too?” Dawn asked, covering a huge yawn with her hand.

“Oh, yeah.” She leaned down and kissed her sister’s cheek, their hands clasping for a moment. “’Night, Dawnie.”

After her face was washed, toned, and moisturized and her teeth brushed, Buffy pushed open the balcony door so the warm ocean breeze blew into her bedroom. It smelled almost like home. She laid down, listening to the surf.

For all practical purposes, they had landed. They were somewhere safe, beginning to make decisions about their futures. Buffy reached for her handbag on the nightstand and took out the white crystal Willow gave her.

She turned it over in her hand, thinking hard about Spike. The smell of whiskey and old leather; that was easy. The sound of her name sighing across his parted lips. The flare of his duster as he turned away. His eyes, so expressive and always, always on her.

Buffy closed her eyes tight, trying to see his whole face. Those cheekbones, the hollow of his cheeks leading down to his jawline. Lips… Dammit, she knew his mouth! Wiping away angry tears, she jumped out of bed and went back to the bathroom. When she returned, she had a clean washcloth in her hand. 

Sitting back down on the bed, she wrapped the crystal in the cloth and simply squeezed to crush it. It wasn’t like she needed a hammer or anything. 

Crunch!

The next moment, a wave of dizziness washed over her. Buffy fell back against the mattress, her eyelids fluttering. Later, she was never sure if she passed out or simply fell asleep, just that Willow’s memory spell worked.

She could remember everything.


	5. A Visit with Angel

November 2003

Santa Barbara, California

She woke up knowing.

Other things, too, the things she’d wanted: the angle of Spike’s nose, the width of it, how it simply was a nose in the background compared to the prettier parts of his face. The way Joyce smiled as she spun in her dress before her last date; the beautiful dark blond of her mother’s curls in the sun when they met for lunch outside the gallery. The low rumble of Spike’s voice against her ear. 

But there was a new thing she knew.

Something Angel wanted her to forget.

Buffy lay on her back, gasping. Angel in sunlight, breathing, human. A night of passion and laughter. All of his protective, manly crap, a dress rehearsal for Riley’s issues. His unilateral decision to erase it.

Coming to terms with what Angel stole from her took half an hour. Buffy’s chest hurt from the sobs that she refused to let out. He’d been human, everything she’d ever wanted, and he took it away. 

Angel, who could have just come back and held her, let her enjoy those last few moments. Instead, he told her, watched her as she fell into pieces, undone by grief.

Angel, who wanted to be the hero more than he wanted to be hers. So he could save her. The Slayer.

Angel, who smiled wistfully and left her to die when she begged him to stay and help with Glory. Begged him over her mother’s grave.

He didn’t even try to save her.

Angel, who brought an amulet and left it for another man to wear.

Angel, who always left.

He just found ways to hide it from her. Keep her hanging on. 

If only. Maybe. Someday.

Kept her from ever really opening her heart to another.

God, she was such a fool.

Because if she’d known this, she could have seen past him, seen the contours of a different kind of love, one based on really knowing a person, the good and the bad, versus the idealistic young love she’d clung to for freakin’ years.

But with her memory sharpened, that young love seemed less like two soulmates finding each other and more like a predator with prey. Buffy realized how much she’d forgotten as she burnished her brazen idol, how much she’d overlooked even then. Angel rarely fought at her side, hardly ever spent time with her, and was all over the board, vacillating wildly between warning her away and reeling her in. She spent nearly the same percentage of time hoping Angel would simply show up as she spent dreading that Angelus would.

Buffy forgot that the first time he even touched her breasts was the night she gave him her virginity.

She forgot that he never once let her touch him below the waist.

She forgot how little control he had over his demon emerging.

She forgot how he accused her of being the one who would lose control.

Taking a deep breath, she rolled off the mattress and hastily drew the covers up, considering her bed made. Along the edge of the room was a suitcase she had yet to open. Now Buffy went to it and tossed it onto the bed, dialing the combination to the lock and unzipping the luggage. Inside were her Slayer tools, covered by a concealment charm to get them through security.

She lifted the Scythe. It was hers; she was the one who found it. She alone had King Arthur’d it out of the stone, fought for it. Giles hadn’t been happy that she took it with her, but, really, there wasn’t anything he could do. She wasn’t retiring, after all. She was willing to fly – or be teleported – anywhere, Scythe included, ready to fight evil.

Beneath its red, deadly lines was a small arsenal of stakes, swords, axes, and more exotic weapons. She reached for none of those, just took a set of bracelets from the suitcase, then closed it.

Buffy had the beginning of a plan.

***

Dawn stabbed into a grapefruit half as she stared at her sister. She chewed before she managed to get out any words. “I’ll help. I know you don’t need my help to kill Angel, but I want to. Or at least be there.” She shook her head so vigorously her brown hair swung to the side. “He unilaterally took away your memory. Unbelievable. He really told you and then watched you fall apart?”

Buffy nodded grimly. “He did.”

“And he said he took back being human so he could be strong enough to fight. So you could live.”

“He did.”

“And then you asked him to stay in Sunnydale and fight Glory.”

“And he did not.”

“At Mom’s funeral.”

“Over her grave.”

“I really want to stake him, Buffy.” She stabbed the grapefruit again, a poor substitute.

“All those years of… yearning for him,” Buffy said, shaking her head, “and he was over me before he even left Sunnydale, I think.” All those years of comparing worthier men to him, not knowing.

“Why would he want you hanging on like that?”

She shook her head. “I don’t even care, you know? I don’t think I want to know.”

“I think he’s like Xander. Knowing he wasn’t going to be the one, but not wanting anyone else to be with you.”

Buffy lifted a shoulder, not answering. Angel damn well knew he could have been her one. She’d waited on him to come back to her until four days after Spike closed the Hellmouth, waited until it was too late for her ever to be truly happy.

“What are you going to do?”

The Slayer sighed. “I don’t know yet. Let me have some more coffee, take a shower.”

“How did I break my arm?”

Buffy blinked at the sudden question. Oh. Checking to see if Willow had messed with her memories. “Willow was high on magic from Rack and crashed a car. The world’s worst babysitter.”

Dawn nodded grimly. “Just making sure.”

When Buffy emerged from her room after a shower, clean but with an evil glint in her eye, Dawn was waiting expectantly. “Well?”

“I think I’ll get that car service you mentioned. Run a couple of errands. Go down to Los Angeles tomorrow. Go see Angel.” Her smile was cold. “I think I’ll have a little talk with him.” 

“A talk.” Dawn crossed her arms, not satisfied with that verb.

“Maybe with visual aids. Do you still have an email address for Clem?”

“Clem?” Clearly surprised, Dawn uncrossed her arms. “Yeah, I can find it.”

“I think I might need his help.” Buffy went into the details of her rapidly forming plan.

When she finished, Dawn gave her a piercing look. “Good. I was afraid you’d just forgive Angel.”

Buffy’s brows went up. “For this?” she asked in disbelief.

“You never confront anyone over anything, just forgive them.” She looked down. “Like kicking you out of the only house that still had threshold magic.”

She touched her sister’s arm. Dawn was right; there hadn’t been any confrontation over that. If any of her friends actually talked to her, apologized… Yeah, she’d forgive them. But she was still waiting. It was as if they feared that betrayal was one too many, so they weren’t going to bother, just assuming she didn’t have any forgiveness left in her. “I always figured the First Evil sowed a lot of fear in everyone,” she said diplomatically.

“Maybe. But, Buffy… I am so, so sorry. I know I’ve said it before, but… Being out in Sunnydale all alone,” she winced, “that could have got you killed.”

“I was fine. By the time I got sleepy, Spike was there.” She dropped her eyes. “But you aren’t wrong about me. I don’t say anything, let things fester. Never tell anyone what I feel.”

“So the other person never has any reason to change.” 

Buffy nodded at Dawn’s pointed words. “Oh, I think I can give Angel reason to change. Or at least stay out of my life.” She was going to speak directly to his demon, so that he would never mistake her for his victim again.

Dawn considered her, then smiled in a bloodthirsty way that she must have borrowed from Spike. “Okay. But I don’t see why I can’t come with.”

She shook her head. “Giles was really clear that the whole law firm thing, Los Angeles branch especially, was evil. I won’t let you go in there.”

“But you’ll be safe?”

Buffy remembered the privilege of a private hotel room at the Hyperion. “Oh, I bet they show me right in.”

***

Los Angeles

“Take those elevators,” the Wolfram and Hart security guard pointed toward a bank of them, “Look for the secretary’s desk in front of double doors. I notified Mr. Angel that you’re on your way. Have a good day, Ms. Summers.”

Buffy reclaimed her handbag from the x-ray scan at the security checkpoint and strode across the lobby, feeling admiring eyes on her. She looked good, and she knew it. After vacillating between a soft, girlish chiffon dress and a full leather outfit with bustier, she and Dawn decided to split the difference. Her legs were sheathed in black leather pants. Her top was a soft, clinging red silk with long sleeves and a deep V-neck. She wore black boots with a bit of a heel. Buffy left her hair down in bouncing, curling tendrils. Her breasts were verging on B-cup territory these days, since she’d been eating regularly, but she wasn’t wearing a bra. Large gold hoops swung from her earlobes and two chunky bracelets encircled her wrists. She wore no other jewelry.

No one else got on the elevator with her. As the doors slid shut, her eyes narrowed. This place was huge and reeked of money. And even more of evil. Her nerves were on fire with warning tingles. Giles, in his drunken rants just after Sunnydale fell, said the demons who ran it couldn’t manifest in this dimension yet, but they were preparing for that day. Based on the swanky address and the ostentatious trappings, preparations were going well.

When the doors opened, the Slayer’s eyes went immediately across a large, open space to Angel, who was fidgeting beside a desk where – “Harmony?”

“Buffy!” the blond vampire said enthusiastically. “It’s just amazing to see you. You look great.” 

“Not now, Harm,” Angel said, pushing her back into her chair and trying to catch Buffy’s eye. His own took her in as she crossed the distance, checking out her rack, her sleek legs, then back to the bounce and sway of her breasts.

She wasn’t looking at him as she approached, though, impressed by how much Harmony’s ability to fake sincerity had improved. “You’re his secretary? How did that happen?”

“Executive assistant,” Harmony corrected.

“It was Wes’ idea,” Angel said, waving it away. “She already worked here when we took over.” His voice softened as he took a step forward, partially blocking Harmony. “You look good, Buffy.”

“Thank you.” She looked around at all the busy people in expensive suits going about their important work in a luxury setting. “Nice digs.”

He shrugged modestly. “This is just where we do our thing.” Angel turned, his body still blocking Harmony, and waved her toward the doors to his office. “Won’t you come in?”

“Sure.”

“Hold my calls.” Angel glared at his assistant. “No interruptions. No one gets in.”

“Okay, boss,” she agreed sullenly.

Perfect. The Slayer smiled.

“So, Buffy, what brings you back to the States?” He closed the door behind them.

She thought Angel seemed a little nervous. Buffy took a moment to look around at the roomy office, bright windows (Giles had briefed Slayers about necrotempering), a long table, the chairs, and large desk. A very large desk for an important man. 

Behind Angel’s large desk was a display of exotic bladed weapons. Buffy smiled. She hadn’t bothered trying to smuggle a weapon into the building. She was a weapon. But it was kind of Angel to provide her with such a selection. She wouldn’t even have to break that polished, gleaming antique console for stakes. And why would anything wooden be in a vampire’s office?

Turning back to Angel, she gestured him past her, since she was between him and his throne, a high-backed leather office chair. After he was positioned where she wanted him, she asked sweetly, “No hug?”

Angel turned back. He seemed to relax as he smiled and held out his arms. Buffy promptly kicked him in the balls with unfettered Slayer strength.

He sank to the floor with a harsh grunt of pain that edged into a silent moan. Buffy listened carefully, but heard nothing from outside. Good. Just as she thought, the office was soundproofed. Angel managed to lift his eyes to her. She gave him a sunny smile before punching him in the jaw. He went down like a sack of laundry, limp and unconscious.

Buffy sniffed. That blow wouldn’t faze some vampires she could name. She closed her eyes for a moment, then shook her head. Work now; guilt later. She had the rest of her life to feel guilt.

Straddling Angel’s body, she took the bracelet off one of her arms and clamped it over his right wrist. She looked around at the office, checking for things she could use. Nodding, Buffy set to work.

***

Angel opened his eyes to a haze of pain. His testicles throbbed and so did his jaw. His forehead stung, and he could smell his own blood. He raised his head to see a blurry blond and red figure moving calmly in front of him.

“I’d say welcome back,” Buffy said, “but you probably won’t enjoy the rest of my visit.”

He tried to stand up, but he couldn’t. His elbows were slotted beneath the arms of his big office chair, his hands bound behind him. He felt oddly weak and was slumped in the chair, unable to hold himself upright. Instead of resting behind his desk, it had been rolled across the floor near the windows. “Buffy?”

“You were expecting someone else?”

His face hardened. “You aren’t Buffy.”

“Oh, I am. Buffy Summers, last Chosen One. Slayer, comma The.” She leaned toward him slightly. “Warrior of the People. The Fist of God.”

The malevolent smile on her face could almost make him shiver. She knew. How did she find out? Someone told. He was going to kill someone. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, just thought I’d drop by for a chat,” she said airily. 

“You don’t have to tie me up for that.”

“Oh, no, I really do.” 

Buffy leaned over and took something from the tasteful wooden console some unknown Wolfram and Hart decorator placed in his office. She had used the surface to lay out her tools. It was the kind of display he’d done himself – that Angelus had done. Right now, she held one of a pair of honed, tenth-century knives, taken from the wall behind his desk. She flipped it skillfully, testing the balance, making a show of it.

When she didn’t speak further, Angel felt both dread and anger. Silence was one of the tactics Angelus used, too, dammit. She shouldn’t be doing this. She was innocent, good. “What is it that you want to talk about?”

She gave him a level look. “I think you know.” She flipped the knife once more, catching it emphatically.

Angel closed his eyes a moment. Fred? Wesley? Who’d told her? 

Buffy drove the knife into Angel’s left leg, just inside the kneecap. She waited until his gasping cries tapered off. “Your attention seemed to wander,” she smiled sweetly and reached for the other knife, “just for a moment. And I require your attention.”

“What are you doing?” he hissed, his wide eyes fixed on her now. “This isn’t like you!”

“How the fuck would you know?” The Slayer’s tone was flat. “You’ve been gone for years. I could be anybody by now. I could be the kind of person who beats on helpless vampires.”

“Buffy, look –” 

“Angel? Shut up.”

He stopped talking, his eyes on the matching knife, upraised beside Buffy’s shoulder.

“That’s better.” They stared at each other for a long moment. “Guess what I found out just recently?”

He thrust out his jaw. “It’s for your own good.”

Buffy gave a short, bitter laugh. “Oh, I’ve had a lot of people do things ‘for my own good,’ but I gotta say, you’re the ‘champion’ at it.” She was pleased to get that line in; it was one she’d rehearsed saying to him. 

“You condescending prick. I guess you haven’t noticed, since you haven’t been around, but I’m not sixteen anymore. I kind of have the right to make my own decisions about what’s in my best interests.” She leaned closer, still not within striking range, and added, “You never had that right. You don’t have any rights where I’m concerned.”

His brown eyes were nearly hidden beneath his lowered brows. “I have the right because I love you.”

Buffy laughed in his face. “Oh, do you? I guess that’s why you stayed in Sunnydale to help me when I asked.”

Angel’s frown deepened with his confusion. “You told me to leave, to make a second front.”

She stood up straight, giving him a look of disgust. Then she drove the second knife into his right knee.

When Angel mastered the new pain, well over a minute later, he lifted his head to see Buffy standing in front of him with her arms crossed, a stern look on her face. “You really shouldn’t remind me about other things you’ve done to make me hate you.” She smiled again. “I’m telling you this for your own good.”

Hate him? The big vampire didn’t say anything, just tested his bonds again. He was pretty sure he could take Buffy in a fight (he had a brief, vivid image of Spike laughing his ass off at this belief). Well, not now that he was injured, of course. Angel clenched his fists, feeling the agony in his knees, the dull, painful throb from his testicles, and that odd stinging on his forehead, almost a burning now.

“Huh,” Buffy said, pretending to be impressed by his silence. “You can be taught.” She propped a hip against one of the deep armchairs, making a show of finding a comfortable position. “Let’s talk about old times. Old memories. You know, the ones you have,” she reached behind her and came back with a throwing star, “and I don’t.”

Vampires can’t flush or go pale, but Angel had been human once. The way he held his head gave him away.

“Oh, yes,” Buffy gritted out, “that.”

“I did it for –” He stopped speaking when she raised the shuriken, aiming it at his face.

“You did it for you.” Buffy made the statement baldly. “I’m going to ask you questions. I want honest answers. Do you understand?”

He was dazed by more than pain now. She knew Spike was back and that he’d taken away the day he was human? Angel nodded carefully, suddenly aware that he was in deeper waters than he thought.

“You were human. We had this… amazing day together. Then you went out to kill a demon. To do my job.”

“You were sleep–”

“You know what? I am totally capable of waking up.”

He stared up at her. “I needed to see what I could do.”

“Oh, you could do something, all right. You could get your ass killed.” Buffy shook her head. “You always liked to rescue me, to protect me. I don’t need that.”

“You need somebody who can –”

“Do I, though? Chosen One.”

“Your friends –”

“My friends help. They would have woken up the Slayer, backed me up.” She shook her head. “Xander’s human, nothing more. He helped for years.”

“He lost an eye,” Angel pointed out.

Buffy closed her own, remembering that Xander would have lost both eyes if not for Spike. “Yes. After seven years, while facing the ultimate Evil, human Xander got seriously hurt. Seven years, Angel. You didn’t even give it more than one day.”

“I couldn’t help you!”

“You could have. You just didn’t enjoy being human. Being weak. Not being the big hero.” When he didn’t answer, Buffy kicked his office chair, just a light tap but enough to jar his injuries.

“No,” he grunted.

“So why did you tell me I needed to be normal?”

“Because you do,” Angel told her, bewildered. “That’s what you always wanted.”

“That’s what I wanted when I was sixteen,” she agreed, “when I was still dealing with being called. But the way you left me… I felt like I had better be normal, because we’d sacrificed our happiness for it.”

Angel said nothing.

“So when you figured out a normal human had no place in my life, when you got your demon back, I notice you didn’t show up in Sunnydale to tell me you’d been wrong.”

Angel’s eyes flickered away, but he forced them back. He kept his silence.

“Have you ever once asked someone before you made a decision for them? Even once?”

Something painful flashed across Angel’s face. “No.”

Whatever he was thinking about, it wasn’t about her. Buffy snorted. “You’re pathetic, you know that?” He gave her a mulish, muddy look, so she kicked his ankle.

Pain blossomed in his jarred knee, causing him to groan. “I know.”

Buffy drew in a breath. She looked at his forehead for a moment, then met his eyes again. “Why did you come back and tell me?” When he shifted, looking puzzled, she clarified, “When you had the day erased. Why did you tell me?”

“I… I wanted to spend those last minutes with you.”

“You could have done that without telling me. You could have just held me. Not said anything.” Buffy pushed off from the table and paced away. “I think you wanted to break my heart. I think you wanted to punish me. You wanted to see me break.”

She glanced at him. Angel was shaking his head, but he didn’t say anything. For a long moment, she thought about pressing the issue, but didn’t. He’d broken her heart so many times; what did that one matter? He’d never be able to do it again. Buffy shot a glance at the clock behind the conference table. Time to get to the main question.

“Together we’re powerful; alone, we’re dead,” she misquoted the Mohra demon. “We were never together after you made that choice, Angel. I died. Just like that demon said. So, I ask you, why didn’t you stay with me, be that powerful pair?”

“You know why,” he ground out. “It’s too risky.”

“I lived two years after you left. Just two. You’d been celibate for a hundred before then. You couldn’t hold out for the lifespan of a Slayer?”

“You’re a young woman who needs –”

She slashed his cheek with one of the tips of the throwing star. “I’m sorry, did you just presume to know what I need?”

Angel said nothing.

“Answer me, or lose an ear.” Buffy sounded distant and uninterested as she raised her hand again, aiming the throwing star. “Tell me the real reason, because we both know it wasn’t the sex and it wasn’t your lack of control. That was always there.”

“I left because…” He looked up at her helplessly. While he liked pain as much as the next vampire – well, maybe more – the emotional pain was a bit too sharp for even him.

“Go on.”

“Because I don’t love you.”

She nodded, accepting this without any change in expression. Though she kept it hidden, what she mostly felt was vindicated. She’d known, hadn’t she? The moment she remembered, she’d known. “When did you stop?”

Angel stared at her a long moment before he closed his eyes tight. His face gave away nothing, but there might have been a flicker of surprise at first, a widening of his eyes. She thought it was because his admission didn’t bring forth a single tear.

“I’m waiting.”

The burn along his forehead was like fire now; it was hard to concentrate. “Since hell.” He slumped. “Since I was in the hell dimension.”

Buffy jerked, glad he wasn’t looking. That long? Despite everything, those words hurt. “Why did you say you still loved me after hell spit you out? Why did you keep acting like you did?”

“I still… wanted you. What Whistler said… I kind of thought you were my,” reward, he started to say, but thought better of it, “path to redemption.”

“Okay. So, I wasn’t a person to you. I was a ‘path.’ Like, what? A symbol?”

Angel nodded. “You’re good. My demon… I can sense it. I…” He hesitated. “I wanted you to choose me, so I’d know I was redeemed.”

“I did choose you,” she pointed out, “time after time. And you left, every chance you got.”

“Buffy… I just wanted to help you at first. Then I started falling for you.” Angel shook his head, looking up at her with brown, soulful eyes from a bloodied face. “I… I thought it was a test, because you looked like the kind of girl that I …” She’d never understand.

“I looked like your favorite victim. A small blond.”

Gaping up at her, he couldn’t get anything out for a moment. “Like Angelus’ victim.”

“You are Angelus. God, even I finally figured out that one.” He didn’t answer her, didn’t look at her. “Do you know how bad you are at love?”

Faced with this much of her truth, Angel turned his face away, actually used his injured body to swivel the chair.

She kicked his knee, twisting the knife still impaled in the wound. “You know the rules.” His chair spun almost a full rotation, so he once again faced her.

It took almost half a minute for him to overcome the white-hot pain. “I know I am. Bad at love.”

“You damaged me because of that.” Buffy leaned toward him, a triumphant smile touching her mouth. “But I got better. I got over you. Not in time, but I am over you. And after this, I never want to see or hear from you again.” When he didn’t answer, she raised her hand.

He flinched away. “You won’t! I swear!”

Other, better vampires hardly ever flinched. Angel was such a candy-ass. With another glance at the clock, Buffy gave a small nod. Chucking the throwing star onto the console, she reached toward him, feeling a gratifying sense of satisfaction when he ducked away. She ripped a clear piece of plastic from his forehead.

“What is that?” he asked warily. It looked like a wide piece of tape with some dark smudges on it. Was that what caused him to feel weak, some kind of spell?

Buffy considered whether she wanted to tell him it was a cementing enchantment from a demon tattoo parlor and decided she didn’t. He couldn’t see his reflection, so it might be a while before he realized.

Spike always made fun of the size of Angel’s forehead. He did have a low, heavy brow, but Buffy didn’t think the whole of it was abnormally large. Her opinion was that his hairline just emphasized his forehead. Of course, Spike also made fun of his gelled-up hair. Well, the blond pain in the ass pretty much made fun of everything about Peaches. Which reminded her…

“So… Peaches,” Buffy drawled, and it fed something within her to see Angel’s eyes widen in recognition of Spike’s word. There was a spark of fear, too, and that fed something more primal. The vampire should be afraid of her.

“Buffy,” he said quickly, leaning away from her, “I swear I was going to tell you eventu–”

Her fist cut him off, another solid strike to the jaw. She used her left this time, in honor of Spike. The office chair tilted from the force of the blow, teetered for a moment, then settled back down on its wheels. She’d knocked him unconscious again. 

She found it very satisfying.

Tilting her head, Buffy considered the word she’d carved into his forehead. Pretty even letters, she thought, considering how disgusting the whole thing was to her. Taking out her phone, she unfolded it and snapped a few photographs of Angel with his new tattoo. 

LIAR.

The truth in big block letters across his forehead.

Since she wasn’t allowed to assist, Dawn wanted pictures.

Using the toe of her boot to swivel the chair, Buffy put her fingers on the cuffs and said a single word, unlocking the spell. Finished with Angel, finished with everything, she walked out of the office, putting the ‘bracelets’ back on her wrists.

Harmony wasn’t at the reception desk, so she shrugged and walked over to the elevators and pressed the down button. So much for goodbyes. She couldn’t wait to get out of here, away from the oppressive feel of evil and wrongness. 

The pain and future embarrassment she served Angel for stringing her along was nothing close to the hurt and humiliation he’d caused her, or that she in turn inflicted on Spike. She didn’t think that Angel could feel emotions deeply enough to ever get the scales close to even, but her petty revenge at least sent a message. She knew him now, and she never wanted to see him lurking in her shadows again. It was enough, and she was done with him.


	6. Lab Work

Buffy pressed the ‘down’ button again, impatient for the elevator, ready to be gone from Wolfram and Hart. She glanced around the open floor, noting all the expensive equipment on the desks and the art on the walls, making sure security wasn’t onto her. It could have been any ritzy law office, except for the occasional demon in a power suit and the miasma of evil that hung over everything. Only Angel could have ended up in a place like this.

How could she ever have compared Spike to him and not seen which was clearly the best man? It was obvious from the beginning who could really love. Spike helped her save the world from Acathla for love; she herself did it out of duty and only at the last possible moment. Yet she’d called him selfish and scorned him for the truce. Was it just jealousy, envy that the vampire who did the right thing, who saw things clearly, belonged to Drusilla and not her? Fury and hurt that the vampire who could love without his soul didn’t love her?

Yet he had. Spike once told her that he thought he must have loved her from the moment he saw her, not in the alley behind the Bronze, but on the dance floor. She’d shone like a golden goddess in the spotlight, he told her, power and innocence and beauty. His only option at the time was to challenge the powerful part of her, because he was tied by duty and love to another. He was the Slayer of Slayers, but he’d never been able to do it, had always hesitated, had always held back. Because I loved you from the first, he’d said.

And she’d kicked him off the sarcophagus where they lay after another round of sexual combat, knocking him into the wall of the crypt. She’d called him an idiot who could never have defeated her, no matter what excuses and lies he told himself. 

Buffy closed her eyes for a moment, willing the memories away. Too much denial, too much pride, too many wasted opportunities. Taking a breath, she opened her eyes and gave her head a little shake. She could wallow later, once she was out of this gleaming, hellish place.

Finally. An elevator arrived with a ding, the doors opening. Buffy stood back to let a skinny brunette girl in a lab coat get off. She was jabbering at the occupant behind her. Buffy kept her eyes at chest level, waiting for him to get off, too, but he froze. She lifted her gaze and found herself looking into shocked, intensely blue eyes.

“Slayer?” Spike asked. 

The woman in the lab coat fell silent, her eyes widening even more and flicking between the two frozen figures. This was Spike’s Slayer? Angel’s Buffy? The pretty blond woman didn’t even glance at Fred, too intent on the vampire.

Buffy heard a tiny sob escape her throat before she hurled herself at the figure in the elevator, arms reaching to embrace him. His arms came up to grab her in return, but she went through him, rebounding off the rear panel of the car to land on her butt.

And Buffy’s heart broke all over again. She had allowed a foolish moment of hope. Shoving back against the roaring flood of pain and sorrow, she girded herself for a fight. 

The First Evil, up to its oldest tricks.

She looked up at him, at his agonized expression, and spat, “Back for more?” She scrambled to her feet. “What, you gonna sue me this time? Here for a lawyer?”

The door began to shut, and Fred quickly ducked inside. “Buffy?”

She had the woman turned and slammed against the wall in a microsecond, even before she was sure this being was solid. “Who are you?”

“Um, Fred?”

Spike shook himself free from shock and figured out what she meant. “Love? It’s really me. Not the First Evil. You can let go of Fred. It really is me, just… I’m sort of a ghost.”

She couldn’t bear to look at him. “Bullshit.”

“It’s true,” Fred said, her face pressed uncomfortably against the wall. “Someone sent that amulet back to Angel. Spike came out of it.”

The vampire in question took a step closer, wishing he could smell her even if he couldn’t take her in his arms. Not that he had that right. “Love? He wouldn’t – I couldn’t find out anything, just that you survived. Are you all right? How ’bout the Bit?” 

Buffy closed her eyes. God, this hurt. “Just a trick,” she muttered. Then, louder, “Shut up.”

He closed his eyes in frustration at the command and whirled to face the other wall. “Nothing ever changes with you!” he snarled, clenching his fists.

“Look,” Fred said, reaching a tentative hand to the panel of buttons, pressing one. “Let’s go back to my lab, and we can talk. I can show you the test results. He really is Spike. Even Angel says so.”

Spike shook his head, turning back, unable to take his eyes off Buffy for long. “Can you at least let go of Fred? She’s human. Not like she can hurt you.”

Buffy shoved the woman away. “Who are you?”

“I’m Fred? Fred Burkle. Winifred, I mean. Um, I know Willow?” she babbled.

That name sounded familiar, something about the mysterious trip to L.A. in those last days that resulted in Faith coming back with the witch. Buffy moved her feet before letting go, so that she was against the other side of the elevator in a ready stance. 

Fred slid down a little at the abrupt freedom, then caught herself. “Gosh, you’re really strong.” As she turned and adjusted her lab coat, she glanced at Spike. He looked devastated, his arms wrapped close around his non-existent body. “You all right?” she asked softly.

He refused to meet her eyes. “Buggered as usual,” was the short answer.

***

The elevator door opened. “You first,” Buffy commanded, nodding at Fred. She waited until the scoffing figure of Spike went past her before cautiously stepping from the elevator, tensed for an ambush.

“Just down this way,” Fred said. She swiped her ID across an electronic panel to get into her office. “Come on in.”

Her eyes scanning everything, Buffy found what she needed in the hallway. She took a fire extinguisher from a recessed case in the wall and used it to prop Fred’s door open. She wasn’t about to be trapped in this room, with all the glass shelving and sterility. It strongly reminded her of the Initiative.

Fred glanced at Spike, puzzled. He didn’t say anything, just gave her a nod to go on. He understood exactly what the Slayer was doing. She would be feeling the evil that seeped from the very walls and plush carpet of the law firm, same as him.

“It is Buffy, right? I mean, there’s a bunch of Slayers now.” Fred went to a computer and quickly logged in. “Spike’s told me a lot about you, about all the times you saved the world.” She paused for a moment. “I just want to say ‘thank you,’ you know? But I guess you get that all the time.” 

Spike snorted. Like Buffy ever got anything from her calling.

Buffy glanced at him, then away. For so long, she’d wanted to see him, but not this way. Seeing this false image of him hurt so much, it made her eyes sting.

Fred was typing away, her fingers leaving the keyboard occasionally to use a mouse. “Here we go, just let me open these…” She beckoned Buffy toward her, turning the screen a little so the Slayer could see. “Spike’s not exactly a ghost, because he can be detected by normal physical measures. See?” Buffy looked at the neat columns of numbers and listened to the scientist enthusiastically describe electromagnetic and heat results and significance levels. It meant nothing to her. She peeked at the figure waiting grimly by the open door, trying to make himself seem smaller.

He looked just the way he did in her augmented memories. No wonder I couldn’t remember his nose, she thought. Why would she ever notice that? Spike exists in his eyes. Right now, they were wounded and anxious, trying not to show how vulnerable he was.

And it struck her then, the difference. She didn’t know what he was, but he wasn’t the First Evil. Every imitation it ever did had a malevolence in its eyes, had exulted when it caused pain. 

Her first reaction when she saw him and threw herself toward him was pure joy. Something inside her had snapped, like the thin glass tube inside a glow necklace, combusting into happiness for the first time in months. Little jolts of that kept trying to make their way through the heavy layers of suspicion and disappointment. But she didn’t dare believe. Hope would be what broke her in the end.

Buffy took a breath and turned to Fred, holding up a hand. “This really means nothing to me,” she said with an apologetic smile. “You said he came out of the amulet? How did it get here?”

“We don’t know.” Fred went on to explain how Angel opened an envelope to find the amulet, none the worse for having a town collapse on it, and how Spike emerged from it, in pain and bewildered. She went back to all the tests they ran, going on until Buffy held up a hand again.

Without really looking at him, she asked, “Where were you? Before you got here?”

He turned his head so that he wasn’t looking at anyone. “Oh, so I’m good enough to talk to now? And I was nowhere.” Spike lifted a shoulder. “For me, no time passed between the Hellmouth and showing up in the Poof’s office.”

Buffy didn’t realize how tense she was until she sagged, forcing her to do a balance check. He wasn’t dragged from heaven, thank God.

Fred chimed in. “It looked like a dust devil, you know, a little tornado made up of dust? He sort of came together, like a vampire getting staked, only in reverse.”

Buffy went pale. Spike died. She knew that, but… dust. Nothing was more permanent than dust. She sent Angel to hell with his body intact. She came back to her own desiccated body. Her arms went around her ribs, soothing her distress in unconscious imitation of the vampire by the door.

“He saved my life,” Fred said. Her words were abrupt. “I’d found a way to make him corporeal again,” at Buffy’s puzzled look, she added, “give him a physical presence, you know? He used it to save me from a real ghost, this really awful one named Pavayne.”

The thing that felt like hope lurched inside Buffy despite her best efforts. “You can give him back his body?”

Fred looked down and fidgeted with the mouse. “Not anymore. We kind of had one shot.”

She shut her eyes very tight for a moment, trying to build up enough courage to believe. “Spike… Are you real?”

“Yeah. ’S’me, Slayer.” He shot her a look, not quite meeting her eyes. “Still think you’re a hell of a woman.”

Buffy covered her mouth at the reference, at the proof. A little choked sound got out anyway. “Spike?”

He turned to her fully, helplessly, a blossom lifting toward the sun, his expression rueful and pained and so real that it took her breath away. “Missed you, love.”

Never like this. She’d imagined seeing him again so many ways, most of them involving him simply knocking on her door or one of them swooping in to help the other with a fight in a random cemetery. And she’d give him hugs and words, reassurances and lots of kisses, and he wouldn’t shy away from her aroused body. But she’d never once imagined finding him in the presence of strangers or not being able to touch him. She supposed that alone should make it seem real, since simple happiness wasn’t possible.

“Buffy?” Fred’s voice was gentle. “If he concentrates, he can touch things on the physical plane. If you hold up your hand –”

The Slayer was already across the floor, standing close to Spike, looking up into his face. He unfolded, drew himself up from the hunched posture, and tilted his head. Spike’s greedy gaze roamed over her lovely features for a couple of moments, drinking her in, then he gave a tentative smile and raised his hand to meet hers.

She felt pressure on the tip of her middle finger, then the pads of her index and ring fingers. His fingers slid between hers and, for just a moment, she gripped his hand in return. No fire, but she knew he was recreating the final time they touched. Then it was over. “Spike,” Buffy said again, tears spilling over her cheeks.

She spun toward Fred. “Willow! God, Willow! Why didn’t you call her?” Buffy turned back to Spike. “Come with me. We’ll give Willow a call and –”

“I can’t,” he admitted miserably. 

“What?” She fell back a step, bewildered. “Why not?”

“He’s tied to the amulet somehow,” Fred put in.

“Tried to leave, you know?” Spike closed his eyes and shook his head. “Get to the city limits, I just get pulled back to here, every time.”

“You tried to leave?” Buffy felt her heart lurch. Tried to come to her? “Well, if you couldn’t leave, why didn’t you call?” She grimaced at her stupidity and turned to Fred. “Well, I know he couldn’t really use a phone, but why didn’t you call us? Call Willow, especially when…” Something in Fred’s guilty expression made her words trail off.

She turned back to the leather-clad ghost. “When did you get here?” 

Spike was watching her with a longing expression. He gave his head a little shake to focus. “Uh, dunno. Don’t really have a sense of time, the way I am now.” He looked over her shoulder at Fred for help.

The physicist looked down at her keyboard and stayed silent. Buffy felt something shift inside of her again, reminding her of the huge reservoir of rage that brought her here. “How long has Spike been stuck here, exactly?”

Fred’s cheeks went pink, and she focused on the computer monitor. “I’d have to check…” She sighed, her eyes on the date of the first test. “About a week after you guys left the Hyperion.”

Stunned, Buffy looked between a guilty Fred and an embarrassed Spike. “Since…” When she got her voice back, it was nearly a shout. “That was months ago!”

Spike exchanged a look with Fred, but neither of them said anything in reply.

No, you don’t. But thanks for saying it.

Buffy shifted to face Spike, heartbreak obvious on her face. “You didn’t want me to know.”

Fred heard the deep pain in the Slayer’s whispered words, but the resignation on Spike’s face was what decided her. Angel might be the boss, but this was wrong. To hell with it. 

She stepped from behind the workstation. “The first thing he did was ask about you,” she told Buffy, drawing the young woman’s attention. “He kept asking Angel to call, or just give him an address.” She sent Spike an apologetic look. “That was before he knew he couldn’t leave.”

“It’s true,” Spike admitted. “Know I don’t have a place in your new life, but… Not going to apologize for the impulse.”

Buffy gave him a puzzled look at that odd statement, still trying to make sense of why no one let her know that Spike –

Her head went up as she realized. Buffy’s cheeks blotched with color, and her eyes blazed. “Angel.” She coiled like a viper who’d just spit venom, then she whirled and was out of the room.

“Where’s she going?” Fred asked, rushing over to stare after the Slayer. Buffy had kicked aside the fire extinguisher she’d used as a doorstop. It was lodged midway up the wall, close to the elevators. She was already gone.

“To see Peaches, I imagine.” Spike’s mouth curved in an evil smile. Then he was gone, too.


	7. A Visit with Angel (Reprise)

She thought she’d been angry before. Now Buffy realized that she was, at most, mildly ticked off over the day that Angel stole from her. This white-hot rage was akin to the fury she had for being pulled out of heaven, the yearlong anger she’d taken out on Spike because if she unleashed on her meddling, presumptuous friends, she’d kill them. She’d used her fists and her best cutting words on him because he could take it, because he’d already been their whipping boy for Angel’s crimes. Spike never deserved any of it, but he let her put it on him because he loved her.

Well, Angel deserved this. And his demon body was strong enough for her to unleash her wrath. 

He might even survive.

Buffy came out of the elevator like a shot, blurring into Angel’s office at top Slayer speed. Harmony still wasn’t in her seat at the desk outside, not that Buffy noticed. She kicked the door shut behind her and was across the room, lifting the office chair and the unconscious vampire in it with one smooth motion. She took a single step back and tossed him into the window. The force of her throw sent two of the caster wheels out, but the chair and the vampire in it hung in the thick shards of glass.

Letting out a little huff of annoyance because she intended to throw him through the window, she reached for his ankle. Before she could touch it, a snort of amusement made her whirl around.

Spike lounged in one of the armchairs. He nodded toward Angel’s lolling head. “Nice work, love. That’s what you were doing up here earlier?”

“How’d you get here so fast?”

“Not really here,” Spike said with a shrug. He gestured at the word LIAR etched on the Great Forehead’s distinguishing feature. “Indelible ink?”

Buffy shook her head. “Tattoo ink.” She showed most of her teeth in a wolfish smile. “I used a knife instead of a needle.”

Spike gave a deep, delighted chuckle. “He’ll have to hide away for a few days until it heals.”

“Oh, no. That ink is from a demon tattoo parlor. Made for vampires. I called Clem to see if he knew of one here in LA, and he came through.”

He chuckled again, pleased that his poker buddy survived the exodus. Then he noticed something. “You want anyone to enjoy your artwork, love, might want to fetch the canvas back in,” Spike advised, nodding at his grandsire. 

She turned to see that Angel’s bare neck was on fire and his head was smoking from the sunlight outside the cracked necrotempered windows. “Fuck,” Buffy said under her breath. She grabbed Angel’s ankle and hauled him from the chair, kicking his slumped body over the carpet to put out the flames. The office chair stayed lodged where it was.

Spike’s eyebrows rose. “Naughty word from a sweet lil Slayer like you.”

Buffy pushed her hair back. “I’ve been living in London. The f-word is like the second most common, after ‘pint.’” She petulantly kicked Angel in the thigh. “Wake up,” she ordered.

“What’d you do to him, then?” He really wanted to know why she did it, but was too cool to ask.

“Hit him.” She tapped her jaw.

“Once?” Spike asked in an incredulous voice, his brows climbing high.

“With my left.”

He snorted. “Nancy-boy.”

“I know, right? Humph.” 

“Why’d you do all this?” So much for cool. Spike stood and came to stand with her over the supine body, taking in the knives still lodged in his grandsire’s knees.

“Because he never let me go,” her voice wavered, “long after he stopped wanting me.”

A nonexistent muscle ticked in Spike’s jaw. “’S’what he does, innit?” He indicated the heap of injured vampire with his chin. “Drusilla never stopped wanting ‘Daddy,’ either.”

“You can stop with the comparison of me to your crazy ho-bag of an ex.”

Spike considered what he knew. She’d come here from Europe – London, she said – to beat up Angel over their grand love affair. It consisted of a one-night stand and a few months of smoldering glances between two idiots who never really got to know each other. That was crazy. Spike didn’t feel like sugarcoating the truth. “Make me.”

Buffy’s head snapped around at his challenge. ‘Stop,’ she’d say halfheartedly, twisting closer so he’d have better access. ‘Make me,’ he’d reply. Until one night, she did mean it and had made him stop. Spike was looking at her with the same challenging expression he’d used before then, and even though it didn’t hold the same edges of desperation, desire, and hope, this was more like her Spike than…

Than she’d seen since her determination to make him stop loving her blew up in her face. Her chin trembled as she fought back tears.

Spike half-turned away, his eyes closing. “Sorry, love. You’re nothing like Drusilla.” It only took Buffy seven years; his poor sire never did get over the bastard.

“No, it’s not about” Angel she started to say, when the vampire on the floor groaned. Buffy looked away from Spike’s wide shoulders to the demon at her feet. In less than a second, she had doffed one bracelet and knelt to place it on Angel’s wrist.

Spike watched her magically shackle his grandsire, his face carefully blank. Clever, he thought. He wasn’t prepared for what Buffy did next.

“Nice of you to join us,” she told Angel coldly. Lifting him by his lapels, she threw him against the window again.

“Aaaagh!” He hit the necrotempered glass and bounced off onto the floor, leaving another network of cracks behind. The impact rattled the lodged chair loose from the adjoining pane, and it thumped to the carpet, one wheel tumbling away. “Urf! Unnnn!” The last sound came when he tried to get to his feet and bent his still-impaled knees.

“Those are some seriously strong windows,” Buffy muttered. She stalked toward Angel, now curled on his side. “You have a bunch of explaining to do.”

He didn’t try to misunderstand, just scooted a couple inches away from her. “I didn’t bring him back. The amulet just showed up in the mail. Whatever is going on, it isn’t my fault.”

“Oh, it never is, is it?”

Spike looked at his furious Valkyrie and thought wistfully of the days when watching his Slayer in high dudgeon could give him a stiffy. He settled for taking a few steps back and leaning against the enormous desk, leaving her room to work.

He immediately scrambled back toward the door as Buffy dashed to the desk and grabbed up the interoffice phone, stretching the cord to the breaking point. It popped loose and whipped against the wall. She stomped back to Angel. “This is a phone, you dick. The exact phone you should have used to call me. When! Spike! Showed! Up!” With each word, she bashed the metal and plastic into his face until it shattered.

“I didn’t think you cared!” he cried, trying to twist his shoulder to protect his head.

Buffy was human, but she let out an impressive roar. “Oh, you complete asshole! You stupid, hair-sticky-up poophead!” Grabbing Angel by the arm and ankle, she tossed him into the antique console. Wooden shards went everywhere. “You knew good and well that I cared about Spike. You just didn’t want me to know he was back.”

It was possible that Angel was too injured to realize it was past time to stop running his mouth. “He isn’t back! He’s not even a ghost, Buffy! He’s not even here all the time.”

“All the more reason to let me know!” She grabbed his sticky-up hair and bashed his head against the wall, making a hole, then slammed him to the floor. Buffy backed away for a moment, but her anger was too great. She closed in and kicked him in the gut, driving several bits of wood into his skin. “You kept him from me! For months! Don’t you think I’d give anything just to have another minute with him?”

“You would?”

The stunned words cut through Buffy’s fury. She turned toward the door, seeing Spike wearing that astonished and awed expression he always got whenever she gave him the merest atom-level trace of a crumb. “Yes. Anything.” She took a couple steps away from Angel, only able to manage a whisper. “I would have given anything. It… it was longer than 147 days, Spike.”

She knew for sure, then, just by the shock on his face. He really didn’t believe her when she finally said the words. Since he always knew her, Buffy had hoped he realized what she hadn’t. But her champion didn’t believe it, either.

Spike hadn’t died for the people who loved him, because he didn’t think anyone did. 

They stared at each other for a lingering moment. Spike broke first, dropping his eyes to the carpet. She wasn’t acting as if he had no place in her new life. Maybe… Maybe a lot more things than he ever dared to consider. “Peaches keeps the amulet in the second drawer of the desk, left side.” He chanced a look at her again. “Reckon if you take it, I could go with you.”

“You can’t,” Angel managed, struggling with whatever held his hands firmly behind his back. “That amulet is the property of Wolfram and Hart.”

Buffy pivoted back to him. Angel was still trying to keep Spike from her? He lay on the floor in a mess of ruined furniture and clothes, bloody and burned. It wasn’t enough to soothe her anger, so she laid an axe kick down across his calf. Something snapped, probably the fibula. She gave him a cold smile. “You gave it to me, remember?”

He hissed in pain but didn’t give quarter. Buffy’s attention was back on him. “And you lost it. It belongs to the law firm.” Angel glanced past her for a tiny second, then his brown eyes settled on hers. “He belongs –”

“I bloody well do not,” Spike snarled. “I’ve signed nothing, sworn nothing. Never will.” His eyes went to Buffy, who had turned away from Angel. “If I belong to any–”

“What’s going on?” a new voice demanded. A petite young woman in expensive clothes opened the office door and came inside. “How did you get a crack in your win–”

“Who’s she?” Buffy asked, one arm already around the newcomer’s throat, the other gripping her hair.

“Eve,” Spike said with a shrug, “short for evil. Angel’s handler,” he thought of the insanity of the Halloween party, “in every way.”

“Oh, so she’s a bad guy?”

“And strong enough to take a hard shag from Peaches, love.” Spike loved tossing petrol on a good fire. “Have at.”

Buffy went still, though. “Angelus?” she whispered. 

Behind her, Angel scoffed. “Like I’d ever get a moment of perfect happiness from that.”

“Even accounting for the magical influence,” Eve gritted out in mutual distaste, “he’s lousy at it for someone that old.” Then she rammed her elbow into Buffy’s midsection.

No human was that strong. Buffy felt so comfortable bashing Eve’s head onto Angel’s desk that she did it twice, making a deeper dent each time. She coldly hobbled the moaning woman by breaking her ankle with a precise stomp of her foot. When Eve tried to struggle free and the Slayer felt her full strength, Buffy tossed her over the desk. As she followed, she grabbed a sword from the weapons display and used it to pin Eve to the wall, shoving the blade through her shoulder.

Satisfied that the dark-haired woman wasn’t going anywhere, Buffy turned away from the gasp of pain and low-pitched ‘Bitch!’ accusation. Since she was already behind the desk, she began opening drawers. 

The amulet was just where Spike said. She paused a moment, unwilling to touch it. Sure, it saved the world by channeling the strength of Spike’s soul, but it also killed him.

“That doesn’t belong to you,” Eve snarled, trying to reach past the guard to the pommel of the sword.

It was enough to make Buffy take it up. She held it at eye level. “What is that saying? Possession is nine-tenths of the law? It’s in my possession.”

“Always liked ‘finders, keepers,’ myself, pet,” Spike drawled.

“Buffy,” Angel gritted out, “don’t. Spike’s hell bound. He’s been –”

“If you walk out of here with that,” Eve interrupted, “he’ll never be more than a ghost. And he won’t survive much longer, anyway.”

“What did you say?”

“What do you mean by that?”

The two blonds spoke at the same moment. Spike and Buffy shared a glance that made Angel feel uneasy. Why was she looking at Spike so much? It was as if they were communicating telepathically, like they could read each other’s minds. Like they had some kind of… connection. 

Both turned toward Eve at the same moment. “What does this,” Buffy asked in a saccharine tone, holding up the amulet, “have to do with Spike’s body?” Because this snooty, superior, evil bitch knew something.

“There is no body,” Eve said after a vanishingly short pause. “He dusted for you.”

Buffy tilted her head, considering the pinned woman. Those words were intended to hurt, and they did. “He did dust. He used this,” she brandished the ugly pendant, “to save the world. But you gave it to Angel to bring to Sunnydale.”

“No,” Eve said warily. “Someone else did.”

“Someone else who works here.”

Behind them, Spike leaned against the door, enjoying the encounter as much as he had the fighting. He loved it when his California girl let go of her inner ditz and showed her intelligence.

When Eve stayed silent, Buffy tilted her head in a considering way. “I think you and your law firm expected Angel to wear it.” She shook the amulet, making it spin and catch the light. “I think it would have burned away the soul that was cursed into Angel.” She looked over her shoulder at the ghost behind her. “But Spike used it instead. And he has that pure, good soul that he fought for, that he earned. A soul that burns so bright that it set our hands on fire, but so full of love that it didn’t hurt me.”

Spike lost control for just a moment, his shoulders falling through the door. He jerked back into Angel’s office, only just remembering not to let his jaw hang open. What she said… It was almost as if Buffy really saw him.

“So, his soul and his demon are still here, ghostlike.” Buffy moved a half step closer to Eve, who struggled against the sword in vain. “I’m thinking that this would have happened to Angel’s demon, that it would have survived when the soul didn’t. You’d have Angelus running the law firm, right? Pure evil, with unlimited resources.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Buffy shrugged and touched her hair. “Yeah, I get that a lot. Blond.” Without taking her eyes off Eve, she reached back into the open drawer and brought out an electric razor. She laid it on the desk and felt around again, this time finding what she wanted.

Eve looked from the scissors in Buffy’s hand to her unsmiling face, then at Angel, battered and bound on the floor. Anywhere else in the law firm, she could call help to her. But not in the CEO’s private office. She swallowed.

“Only, what good is Angelus’ ghost?” Buffy wrapped the amulet’s chain around her wrist and snicked the scissors a couple of times, testing the sharpness. “So, there must be some way to bring back the body, too.”

“You’re so off base. I mean,” she cast about for a reason, “why would we want to stop the First Evil from coming into the world?”

Buffy pouted at her. “Because you don’t control the First Evil? But you do control Angel?”

“He did sign on with them,” Spike mused behind her, unaware of the pout. “Sign a contract, you’re bound to some degree.”

For a moment, she considered her ex. “That was a really dumb thing to do.”

“I had my reasons.”

Eve’s eyes flashed between Angel and the Slayer. “He did. He does.”

She heard the threat directed at Angel, but at this point, he was the least of Buffy’s concerns. “I want Spike back in his body.”

“And I want a black McLaren F1 LM, but it isn’t gonna – Aaaaaagh!” Eve’s eyes widened in horror as she stared at her right hand, which was missing the very tip of a finger.

Buffy couldn’t quite believe she’d just cut off part of Eve, even though she still held the scissors in her hand. She felt her gorge rise, but she steeled herself, let her Slayer side surge nearer the surface. Stepping back, she kicked the bit of flesh toward Angel, who stared at it with widened eyes. “Sometimes it takes a while for people like you, who are used to being evil and in charge, to understand that,” her voice dropped, “you’re dealing with the Slayer.”

She looked over her shoulder again, needing to know that Spike was still with her, even in this extreme. Beating up Angel had been her attempt to assuage her anger and use a language he understood. Harming his indestructible body wasn’t right, though satisfying, and she knew that. But she’d do worse to this Wolfram and Hart employee. For Spike, she’d hurt Eve a lot worse.

The blond vampire gazed at her steadily, nothing but belief in her showing in his eyes. He would always back the Slayer, demon and soul. He gave her a small nod.

But he also knew her, knew that this wasn’t who she wanted to be. His eyes went to the electric razor she set aside. “Might work better than office shears.”

Buffy’s frown of confusion turned into a full, radiant smile, just for him. “You’re a genius, you know that?”

Spike was stunned again. She’d never smiled at him with this simple joy, not even once. “Wish I coulda got that on tape,” he managed, keeping it light in front of their audience.

From his spot on the floor, Angel missed most of their unspoken communication. “Buffy. Don’t lower yourself like this, not over Spike. A Slayer should –”

In one smooth motion, Buffy grabbed Angel’s nameplate from the desk and hurled it toward him like a dagger. The metal and plastic whizzed just past Angel’s face and embedded in the lower wall, only the ‘A’ still showing. “Shut up, Angel.”

The resident ghost gave a long, physics-defying whistle. “Nice throw, pet.”

The Slayer nodded and then snatched up the razor. After a short moment, she figured out how to turn it on and shaved a hunk of hair off Eve, just above her temple. She’d stepped back before the Senior Partners’ liaison realized. Eve was still focused on her missing flesh.

Cocking his head, Spike offered, “Not sure that’s an improvement, love. Maybe take a bit off her eyebrows?”

Eve’s attention snapped from her bloody fingertip to the long hairs drifting down her jacket to the floor and then to the implacable Slayer. She shrank back against the wall. “The mail!” she shrieked. “It’s in the mail.”

Buffy scrunched her nose. “You’re kidding, right? ‘The check is in the mail?’” She sneered at the lame attempt.

“No, no,” Eve babbled, “I swear. Outside, on the secretary’s desk. There’s a box, a flat box addressed to Spike. That’ll give him his body back.”

“Shyeah,” the Slayer scoffed, darting in with the buzzing razor to take off most of Eve’s right eyebrow.

She turned her face away, pressing into the wall. “No! I swear it! Look! Just look, please.” Eve let out a sob of terror.

“I got the amulet in the mail,” Angel said in a quiet voice. He rolled to a seated position, wincing as his injured legs straightened. 

Buffy exchanged another intense look with Spike, then turned off the razor and backed to the door, opening it a couple of inches. Spike stepped aside, though he technically didn’t have to do so. She glanced at Harmony’s desk. The seat was still empty, but there was some mail filling the inbox. Buffy grabbed all of it and came back in, closing and locking the door.

“That’s the one,” Eve said hastily, nodding at the pile.

Buffy gave her a mistrustful glance and set down the electric razor. She picked up the only box and gave it a sharp shake. The amulet bumped against her hand, so she unwound the chain from her wrist and left it on the desk as she examined the box.

Spike’s name was on the outside, but she couldn’t feel anything move inside. From the weight, it couldn’t contain more than a sheet of paper, and it definitely didn’t contain dust. She pulled the tab on the end and turned it upside down, shaking it again so the contents would spill onto Angel’s damaged desk.

Nothing happened.

The two blonds shared a look, a blend of disappointment and resignation. Neither of them really expected Spike to magically regain his body.

Buffy turned her narrowed eyes on Eve, who was cradling her injured hand. “I guess I’ll need something bigger than scissors. Any kitchen knives in the building, Spike? Oh! Or gardening shears?”

Spike took a breath and played along, pretending to consider. “Wolfram and Hart has kitchens, pet, but landscaping has these electric hedge trimmers in their –” He stopped abruptly, his eyes going wide. He breathed in again.

Buffy. Power. Warm vanilla. A trace of sweat. 

Other odors, too. Blood and terrible cologne from Angel, Eve’s blood and intoxicating fear. 

“Spike?” Buffy asked, arrested by the look on his face, worried that her ghost would just disappear the way Fred and Angel mentioned.

Then she was lifted into the air with his nose, the very one whose shape she couldn’t remember, pressed into her cleavage. Spike twirled her in a circle, laughing in glee. “I can touch you!”

Buffy grabbed his shoulder and neck awkwardly. “It worked?” she asked in disbelief. She pressed her fingers into solid muscle.

“It worked!” He spun them around again, then dropped her down his body so he could kiss her.

Oh.

“Spike,” Buffy whispered against his lips, feeling him, tasting him. She grabbed his face and pulled him to her for another kiss, a deeper one, her fingers plundering the strands of platinum hair, destroying the curl-denying gel.

“Slayer.” His voice was ragged as his fingers bit into her hips and pulled her close to his.

She gasped, then Buffy broke into a wide grin. “You’re back!” This was her Spike, really him again, hard and ready for her, open about his desire instead of hiding behind decorum and shame. She shifted against him, using her arms to pull up higher, pressing into him with the same pent-up lust. Neither of them spared a thought for their audience, a sour-looking Angel and the injured Wolfram and Hart liaison.

“Now let me go!” Eve demanded.

Her shrill voice broke through their haze of passion, and they pulled apart. Still smiling, blinking back tears, Buffy laid her hand against his chest. Real. He was alive and real.

“What do you reckon, love?”

Buffy let out a little laughing sob and shook her head. “Let’s just get out of here.”

He nodded toward Eve, then his grandsire. “What do you want to do about them?”

“You know,” she made herself take a step away, her hands sliding along the leather over his strong arms, “I’ll let you decide.”

Spike blinked at her in surprise, then his eyes widened in appreciation. “I bloody well love –” He stopped, his whole demeanor changing. Buffy knew why, knew exactly what he was thinking of, that last moment they had in Sunnydale. 

She knew how to bring back his joy. 

“And I love you,” she whispered shyly, placing her palm against his cheek. “I really do. Just like I said before.” Oh, his eyes, his blue, wonder-filled eyes. “I have for a long time now.” It didn’t occur to either of them to check to see how Angel was taking their exchange.

Spike swooped in to take Buffy into an embrace, no kiss this time. He rocked her back and forth for a moment, too emotional to say anything. And then he remembered they had an audience and was glad to be too overcome for words. This should be private.

He let go reluctantly. “Let me get this, an’ we’ll scarper, yeah?” Walking around the desk, he considered Eve for a judicious moment, then his fist shot straight out to strike her on the chin. His shoulder rotated automatically to shield his face from retaliation, but Eve merely crumpled, her weight dropping onto the sword, causing a new gush of blood. The smell made him salivate.

Spike pulled her and the blade free in one motion, leaving it in place in her shoulder to minimize the bleeding. He laid Eve on the floor in the spot usually reserved for Angel’s office chair. As he stood, he saw the electric razor on the desk. An absolutely wicked grin settled on his lean face.

The older vampire’s expression changed from baleful to wary. “Spike,” Angel said in warning as the younger vampire advanced on him. “No. Don’t do it.” He cringed away. 

“Bloody well owe you for all the crap you’ve been feedin’ me the past few months.”

“No! I don’t even think that is Buffy. She wouldn’t –”

The blond vampire shut him up with one blow across the jaw. “Huh,” Spike said in surprise, staring with widened eyes at his unconscious grandsire. “Works like a charm. Wish I’d known that a century ago.”

“What is that?” Buffy asked. “On his lip?” She gestured at her own mouth.

“One of his teeth. Think you might have rattled them loose, love.”

Buffy joined him with a sigh. “I might as well get my cuffs back.” She knelt down and murmured the word to end the spell.

Spike dropped down beside her. “What do you think? Friar Tuck cut? Shave little heart shapes into the sides?” He clicked the power on, setting the razor to buzzing.

Looking at the unconscious man who’d harmed them both so much over the years, Buffy mostly just wanted to leave. He was her past, and she no longer felt the need to punish herself or him.

Instead, she gazed at the man she hoped would be her future. He wore a little grin and had a mischievous glint in those gorgeous, expressive eyes, looking so much happier than she’d seen him for years. His hair was tousled, and she could touch him and leave him disheveled whenever she wanted now! He was back, her punk rock vampire –

And on that evocative thought, she knew. “Mohawk,” she told him firmly. And reached for her phone. Dawn would want pictures of this, too.


	8. Out for a Drive, Bitch

They closed the door to Angel’s office behind them and started toward the elevators, with Spike pausing only long enough to nick Harmony’s thermos of blood and drop it in a duster pocket. A quiet voice stopped them.

“Spike?”

He grinned at Fred and raised his hand, pulling Buffy’s up along with it. “Corporeal,” he told her, following it up with a laugh filled with pure joy.

“That’s great!” Fred exclaimed, grinning. “But how?”

“That Eve bint’s been holding out on us,” he said, not quite able to work a snarl into his words. He was just too happy.

“Oh, Eve’s such a bi– Well, she ain’t nice.” Fred stepped closer, her nervous smile a trifle apologetic. “If Buffy doesn’t mind,” she raised her arms for a hug. 

He embraced her very carefully, mindful of her fragile body. “You’re a bloody wonderful person, Fred. Thank you,” he said sincerely, pulling away.

She let go. “Wow, you smell really good!” Fred ducked her head, sending an embarrassed smile in Buffy’s direction. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay. He gets that a lot,” Buffy said in a wry tone. She grabbed his hand again, though, feeling possessive.

“You’re leaving, right?” At Spike’s nod, Fred sighed. “It won’t be the same without you around.”

“Won’t miss much about this place, but I’ll miss you, pet.”

Fred nodded toward the office they’d just left. “How’s Angel taking it?”

“Um,” Buffy said, her eyes darting nervously toward the elevators, “he’s fine.”

She didn’t sound very convincing, so Fred looked at Spike, who shrugged. “You may want to call in the medical staff for Eve.” He considered this and shrugged again. “Or not.”

“Either way,” Buffy said hastily, “we should be going. It was nice to meet you.”

“Bye, Tex.” Spike leaned closer to her and whispered, “Don’t blame Buffy. She’s had to put up with a lot from him over the years. And Fred? You’re too good for this place.” He gave her a reassuring pat on the arm before following his Slayer.

They were downstairs and into the lobby before either of them said anything else. “Uh, not too sure about the great escape, pet. Daylight out there.” Spike pulled her away from the glass entranceway toward a door marked ‘Stairwell #2.’

“What’s down here?” She followed him onto the landing.

“Garage. Got to know this place pretty well.” He shrugged. “Ghosts don’t sleep.”

Buffy took his hand at the next bend. “‘Garage.’ Have I told you that I love your accent?”

“Uh,” he gave her a dubious look, “no.”

“Well, I do.”

“Okay.” He started to say something else, but just pulled her toward one of the doors. “This level.”

Spike acted as though he was revealing something incredible, but it looked to Buffy just like a parking garage, albeit a big one. The cars were nice, but they were in L.A. in a building where lawyers worked. She expected as much.

Her vampire pulled her to a metal box hung on the wall near the elevator bank. “Any preference?” He peeled the locked cover away with one hand, vampire strength on casual display.

Buffy’s eyebrows shot up. “What are you doing?”

His mouth twisted into a smirk that did funny things to her breathing. “Five words or less?” His expression smoothed into a fond smile. “Out for a drive, bitch.” The last word was a caress.

“We’re stealing a car?”

“Borrowing.” Since Buffy didn’t know much about automobiles, he put it another way. “Red? Black?”

“Black,” she said decisively. It was his color.

“Viper it is,” Spike agreed, plucking a set of keys hanging inside the box. 

She began to get suspicious. “Are all those…?”

“The Poof’s? Yeah. Perk of the job. Even has a helicopter.” He went to a low, sleek car, black paint shining even in the dim lights.

Buffy shook her head. “Better benefits than Slayers get.”

“Evil always pays better.” He hit the fob and opened the door for her. “Hop in, love.”

“You don’t really need to do this. I have a ride.”

Spike pouted at her. “Yeah, but I want to.”

She laughed, swaying toward him. Now she understood the need to get a pouting lip. “Okay. But just a short joyride.”

He grinned, an irresistibly mischievous grin. “Gotta make our getaway in style.” Spike went around to his door and got in. He gave her a rakish look. “Buckle up.”

He went too fast for Buffy’s comfort and not as fast as he wanted, careening around a ramp and toward the bright opening into the private road that led toward Los Angeles traffic. Buffy’s eyes widened. “Spike! The sun!”

“Car windows are necrotempered, just like the ones in his office.” He cornered with ease of long habit, giving a huff of satisfaction with the car’s performance.

“Does it bother you? Sunlight?” After you burned up, she added mentally. Because she was wigged.

“Not too much.” He crossed in front of a minivan to get into the correct lane. “’Nother part of being a ghost. I used to go sit on top of the building, dangle my boots off the edge and watch the sunset. Or the sunrise, depending.”

She pictured that for a moment, thinking of how lonely it seemed. “You really didn’t know how much time passed?” She watched his jaw tighten.

“Knew it had been a tick when Halloween rolled around, that I came back sometime in summer.” His voice got lower. “I’d ask Angel how you were doing, if you and the Bit were all right.”

“How would he know?” Buffy asked, puzzled. “I mean, we never talked to him.”

“He said he got ‘reports.’ Bugger,” the last because they came to the first red light, only a couple of blocks from the Wolfram and Hart building.

“He was spying on us,” she said flatly.

“Stalker by any other name.” 

Spike was telling her things again, in that rumbly whiskey voice. Buffy looked down at her lap to hide her smile. “Because you were never stalker-boy.”

He turned his head a few degrees, embarrassed. “Yeah, well, right git back then.”

“I’d much rather be stalked by you.”

Spike bristled, his demon side not about to be second to Angel at anything. “You think so, huh? Well, Angelus never had minions videotape you on patrol so he could study your fighting style.”

The only thing that kept Buffy from hugging him was the cramped space. Her ‘Big Bad’ was adorable. “You did that?”

His glance was fleeting, bashful now. “Yeah. Told myself it was just to prepare, protect Dru an’ all, but I was fascinated by you, even then.”

“That’s much more flattering than stealing my knickers.”

“Yeah, well, went for much the same purpose.” Spike’s voice got louder, as if to override what he’d just admitted. “Odd to hear you say ‘knickers,’ love.” The light turned green, and he made a production of shifting gears to pull out.

Buffy bit the inside of her cheek, trying not to smile. If anyone else in the world mentioned masturbating to film of her slaying, she’d be mortified and furious. The fact that Spike did that, and so soon after they met, simply melted her heart. He tried to tell her that he’d loved her from the first, hadn’t he? So, she didn’t tease him, just accepted the change of subject. “I’ve been in London since just before you came back, apparently.”

He didn’t miss the bitterness in her voice. “I’m sorry, pet.”

“It isn’t your fault.”

“No.” He let out an impatient stream of air from his nostrils as another light changed. “But I hope you don’t mind if I’m glad you missed me. I,” he put both hands on the steering wheel, enjoying the feel of the fine leather, “wasn’t sure you would.”

“Of course I did!” Buffy bit her lip and looked away. “But I-I get it. Why you might wonder, I mean. I guess I wasn’t real clear about my feelings those last few months.”

“Barely had time to sleep, love, much less figure things out.”

Tears prickled in the corners of her eyes. He always did that, supported her, put the best spin on her actions. Before she could decide what to say, he went on.

“But what you did, rescuing me, taking out the chip, standing by me… Knew you cared, yeah? Couldn’t miss it, and it meant the world to me, Buffy.” He found what he was searching for, an entrance to an underground garage, and pulled in. It only took a moment for him to figure out which button lowered the window, and Spike took a ticket from the dispenser. After the security bar lifted, it was easy to find parking for the small car.

Buffy felt his eyes on her as she stared at her hands, clasped tightly together on her lap. After the echoes of the powerful engine in the low space, the silence seemed loud. “I should have said… I should have told you a lot of things.”

“Overly-sensitive vamp was pretty far down on your list of priorities back then.”

She shook her head. “You should have been at the very top. You and Dawn, first on the list.”

Spike took his hands from the wheel but didn’t turn to her. “Is now the time, then?”

For a real talk, she knew. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I think it is.”

“All right if I go first?” He saw her nod in his peripheral vision. “Then, top of my list, now that I’m sane enough to give a proper apology: I’m so sorry for hurting you, love.” Spike hesitated, his focus darting to her for a moment before locking onto the steering wheel. “What I tried to – what I did in the bathroom…” He dug his fingers into his thighs. “Nothing I can ever do to –”

Buffy made an agonized sound and struggled with her seatbelt. For an awful moment, Spike thought she was going to flee the car. Instead, she twisted in the seat and moved as close as she could with the console between them. The Slayer took his nearest hand and brought it to her mouth, kissing his knuckles.

“I forgive you. I forgave you the same night.” Buffy turned his hand to kiss his palm. “For everything, even Anya. I should have said, should have told you. I forgive you.” Tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Oh, pet. Don’t cry. ’M not worth it.”

“No, listen.” And she fell silent, except for a sniffle. After a moment, Buffy swallowed. “I accept your apology. I forgive you. Okay?” When he only looked down, she tugged his hand sharply. “Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Buffy knew exactly what he was thinking, because she had the same thoughts. He didn’t know how she could possibly forgive him, because he couldn’t forgive himself. “And I need you to forgive me. Please, Spike.”

“Forgive you…?” He was stunned. “For what?”

She let out a disbelieving chuckle. She’d thought her guilt made her remember everything, but Willow’s memory augmentation spell brought back so much more that needed forgiveness. “Oh, I don’t even know where to start. For mocking you after you escaped the Initiative. Punching you in the nose whenever I was in a bad mood. For making fun of your heartbreak over Drusilla. For always saying you couldn’t love, when I knew good and well that you could.” Buffy shook her head. “God, for so much, Spike.”

It was his turn to twist toward her in the small interior. “Nothing, Buffy. You don’t need to ask forgiveness for anything, not after –”

“I do,” she said firmly, even as she swiped her wet cheek against her shoulder. “I do. For telling you I wouldn’t forget what you did to protect me and Dawn, then just ignoring it because it made me,” her tone became bitter, “feel bad for treating you like dirt, for hurting you and saying all of those awful things that winter.”

Spike’s lips parted and he shook his head. “No, love, you don’t –”

“No, you just listen!” Buffy gave his hand a vehement squeeze. “Because I never let myself see until after you were gone, and I was appalled –” A sob cut off her words.

Spike shifted over the console, one hip digging painfully into the edge, and took Buffy in his arms. “Shh, love. You know what I am, what I’ve done. Don’t deserve to even be in your presence.”

“N-no!” she managed, pulling away. “What I did after you came back, that was even worse. All that crap I gave you about not being real, not being a person because you didn’t have a soul…” She gritted her teeth for a moment. “But after you got it, it didn’t change the way I acted. You were hurting, and I just left you there. On the Hellmouth!” 

Buffy pulled loose and sank back into the passenger seat, miserable. “I’m a terrible person! Angel and his curse of a soul,” she spat bitterly. “He gets a pass, but you don’t? I still blamed you, like I hadn’t done worse, after you came back. With a soul! You wanted the soul, not like Angel –”

“Buffy!” His roar was loud enough to rattle the windows, and she stopped speaking. Spike’s eyes were wet as he leaned back. “Love, as horrible as I was to you for years… Do you think I blame you for not seeing past that?”

“I blame myself.”

“I don’t.” Both of them fell silent. Spike faced the windshield and shook his head. “Can’t say I never thought some of that, that stuff about Peaches’ soul, can’t help being petty, sometimes.” He hung his head and sighed in defeat. “But not you, never you. You… You saved me, not just from the First Evil. I hold you blameless, Buffy.”

“So you forgive me?” she asked in a tiny voice.

He shrugged helplessly. “’Course. You’ll always have that from me. Nothing I can’t forgive you for.”

“But it’s harder to forgive yourself.”

Spike went still in the way only the undead could manage, no rush of blood or heartbeat to cause minute movement. When he turned to face her, self-awareness and sorrow shone from his eyes. He held out his hand. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

She took it, gripping his fingers hard. “Do you still love me?”

Spike drew back, though he didn’t let go. “What? You off your bird? What kind of question is that? Already said I did, din’ I?” And he thought furiously over the past ten minutes or so. Everything moved so fast once he got his body returned. He had said it, right?

“I just… I haven’t heard it in so long – and it’s my own fault, I know that; I told you not to. I was so mean and always contradicting the last thing I –”

And he was all the way over the console, one arm around her, bracing against the passenger door with his free hand, trapping her. “I love you.” He tried to negate the sudden, vampiric capture by gently resting his forehead against hers. “I love you, Buffy.”

She looked into his right eye, then his left, because he was too close to see both. It didn’t matter which; his heart shone through equally, full of love for her. “And I love you, Spike. I really do.”

He let out a shuddering sigh, air caressing her mouth instead of his lips. “Don’t think I can properly tell you what that means to me, Buffy.”

“You believe me this time?”

His eyes widened before he squeezed them shut. No, you don’t. But thanks for saying it. He could see her pain and wished he were a better liar. Spike drew in a breath and moved away an inch or so before meeting her eyes. “Know you don’t say the words lightly, pet, but can’t say I let myself believe back there. Mostly, I just needed you out of the collapse.”

Her eyes were shrewd, if vulnerable. “Mostly?”

Spike let go of her and sank back into the driver’s seat, shame and pain warring for dominance in his eyes. He looked at the block wall through the windshield. “Hard to really believe it after seeing you with Angel right before. The way you looked at him…” Spike swallowed. “Over the past… however long, he’d tell me how you two were destined, how --” He lifted his head, fixing her with his honesty. “You never looked at me like that, open and,” he hesitated just a moment over the next word, “loving. Not until today.”

Buffy felt his words like a punch to her sternum. She bowed her head with her own shame. “I-I can’t tell you why I did that, not really. I guess I was waiting… I’d been waiting for him to come back for a long time.” 

She blinked away tears. “But not anymore. That could never happen now. I don’t love him. I’m over Angel. I see him. And I’ll never hurt you that way again, because I don’t cheat on my boyfriend.”

Spike turned to look at her, bewildered. When her meaning dawned on him, he twisted in the seat to face her full on, examining her carefully. “Boyfriend?”

It was her turn to come across the console. Buffy put her arms over his shoulders. “Will you be my boyfriend? Official and everything?” She bumped his nose with hers, her face tilting for a kiss she didn’t dare start. “If you’ll have me.”

Spike was breathing now; strong emotion always did that to him. “Bloody hell, Slayer. If I’ll – Yes. Boyfriend, beau, lover, special friend – whatever you want to call me.” He nudged his nose against her cheek, his mouth teasingly close to hers, before clenching his jaw and pulling back.

Her fingers were trembling as she cupped his jaw, wanting to keep him close. “Mine. I’d like to call you mine.”

“Always have been.”

Buffy glanced away, full of guilt. “I haven’t been, I know. But I want to be yours from now on.” She dared to meet his eyes again. 

“Buffy… What changed?” He shook his head, bewildered.

“You died.”

Spike shut his eyes for a moment, the emotion in hers overwhelming him. “Love…”

“You closed the Hellmouth, Spike. I’d been chained to it for years. Now, I’m free, and with all the other slayers, I’ve had time. I never got that before, a chance to really think about things.” She touched her nose to his. “I love you.”

He closed his eyes beneath drawn brows. “Easy to love someone when they’re dead.” Spike didn’t lack for courage, so he faced her. “Now that I’m here again, I’m,” he swallowed, “I’m not easy to love.”

“Like I’m easy, either.”

“Everybody loves you, Slayer. Just have to be around you half a minute.” He pressed his lips together for a second. “Nobody ever loved me, not really. I just… I don’t want to disappoint --”

“Spike.” No one loved him? “You aren’t perfect. Believe me, I know. But I don’t need that. I just need you, being honest, being a pain in my ass, being there.” She sniffled, thinking of all the days and weeks and months she needed him and didn’t have him. “I didn’t know how I could go on without you. I hated that there was so much we never got to have. Time together, really together. I want to get to know you, the real you. Who you were before you were turned, who William was. I’d like that.”

He stared at her in awe, as if she were the answer to his every question. “Really?”

Buffy nodded. “A-and I’d like if you kissed me, now that we’re –” That’s all she got out before his mouth descended on hers, his arm pulling her hard against him. 

Buffy tucked her leg beneath her so she could raise up, her arms winding around his neck so she could get closer. Over a year since they’d really touched, so many months since she allowed herself any pleasure. And this, with Spike, with the man she loved… 

His kisses had always been intense, demanding all her attention, sweeping her away from reality. Now there was a new layer, a tenderness that made her want to weep. Why had she denied herself this all those years?

After nearly a minute, she pulled away with a groan and gulped desperately for air. “Forgot how much I love your kisses.”

“Missed this,” Spike agreed, moving his lips to her neck, delighting all his senses with her warmth, her scent and taste, the rush of life through her veins. “Haven’t felt anything in so long, and now I have your heat, your skin. Never thought we’d…”

“From now on,” Buffy promised. “Always.” She leaned to capture his mouth again…

… and banged her elbow into the horn. The two of them jerked away from each other, startled by the echoing noise. Their gazes met, rueful and amused.

She laughed. “There seriously isn’t enough room in here.”

“Always the bonnet.” When she looked blank, Spike glanced toward the hood of the car and raised the Eyebrow of Temptation.

Buffy gave him a speculative look and started to agree when the headlights of a passing minivan swept across them. She groaned in frustration. “Or maybe not.” Giving him a parting kiss, she turned to open her door. “Come on, lover boy. I have a much better ride for us, okay?”

She waited for him by the bumper of the car and took his hand. Giving it an experimental swing, Buffy started to grin. Holding hands with Spike was so much more comfortable than with any of her taller boyfriends, plus she’d automatically placed herself on his right, their usual formation for patrol and battle.

Spike squeezed her fingers, feeling giddy and not a little disbelief. Walking with Buffy, a happy, carefree Buffy who was holding his hand. Willingly. He’d dreamed similar things, though never set on level P2 of a random office building. The Slayer chose him, loved him. She tossed Angel aside, all but spit on him. Then Buffy said she loved Spike, right in front of Captain Forehead. This all felt like a dream. He surreptitiously pinched his thigh with his free hand.

“Which way has the best shade?” she asked as they wound their way to street level. Spike went by instinct and nodded to their right. Buffy rummaged in her purse as they got to the exit and found her phone. Without letting go of her vampire, she leaned out and checked street names. Then she called her driver.

“And who’s Rodrigo?”

Another of her amazing, sunny smiles. “My limo driver.”

He raised his eyebrows, suitably impressed. “Council – Oh. Well, what’s left of the Council finally treating you the way they ought?”

Buffy snorted, putting away her phone, zipping her handbag. “As if. Remember how Giles helped throw me out of my house and onto the Harbinger-ridden streets of an abandoned Sunnydale? After he plotted to kill you?” She took up his hand again, squeezing it tightly. “On the heels of abandoning me while I was in the depths of major depression?” Seeing Spike’s eyes begin to gleam gold with muddy anger, she stopped her recitation of her Watcher’s shortcomings. “That was all worth three million pounds of guilt-money, once he got access to the Council’s accounts.”

“Three million pounds?” He was so stunned that the demon receded.

“One million for each time I died,” she clarified, bright and bitter. Buffy looked out into the sunshine and gave her head a shake. “It isn’t the same between us, not after what happened at the end, when they…”

“When they betrayed you.” His voice was firm; Spike was very clear on what the lot of them did to her.

Buffy’s mouth pressed into a thin line, and she nodded. “And they never apologized. Just Faith. And Dawn, of course. I don’t think I can ever be close to them again. I mean, I’m pretty sure that it was the First Evil’s influence, but… It was based on their actual feelings, their opinions…” She looked down. “I just don’t fit with them anymore. Maybe it would be like this anyway, with all the new slayers who can do what I do, but –”

“No Slayer can do what you do,” Spike stated, taking her gently by the elbows and waiting until she looked at him. “You have every right to be hurt over the way they blamed you. There are casualties in war. Anyone else in charge, there would have been more. Or we simply would have lost.”

She looked away, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “Maybe. But I’m out. Without my friends, it isn’t the same. And it wasn’t like I enjoyed it, the job I had, but mostly… I just don’t want to be the one who has to make those calls. I mean, I’ll still help when the next apocalypse comes knocking, but…” She trailed off and reluctantly met his gaze.

“Earned your retirement, love. More than earned.”

“You aren’t… disappointed in me?” He always loved the fight in her.

His fingers clenched on her elbows. “What? ‘Course not. Could never be disappointed in you. Saw how it wore on you, the burden of…” Spike trailed off as he read the shadows in her eyes. He made his voice lighter. “Not like you’re going to ignore their,” Spike gave her a quick grin, “inevitable cries for help, is it? Just enjoy yourself in London, do the tourist thing. Travel.” His fingers trailed up her arms, and his voice grew husky. “What I wanted for you, love. The chance to…” No better words came to mind. “So one of us is living.”

Buffy forgot to correct his assumption that she was based in London, just choked back a sob and leaned into his chest. With his arms wrapped around her, she felt like things might actually turn out all right. Unwavering belief, unconditional love, unfailing support. She might not deserve it, but she was going to hold onto her vampire for the rest of her life and try to show him the same.


	9. When Life Gives You Limos

When Buffy pulled away from his arms a minute later, Spike pressed a kiss to her shining hair and wiped his wet eyes. His girl was her own person now, making her own decisions, not beholden to her Watcher or her friends. And she’d done it once he’d stopped lurking in her shadows, underlining what she’d always said. She didn’t need him. 

“So,” he began uncertainly, “this new job as your official boyfriend… Might not be able to start right away. Without paperwork, best I can do is find a cargo ship back to Blighty.”

“Oh!” Buffy wiped her face as another smile began to bloom. “So, I took Giles’ guilty-daddy money, and we moved back to the States.”

“We…? You and the Nib– er, your sis?”

She nodded, reaching for his hand again as he halfway turned from her. Then she remembered anew how things had been between her sister and her vampire that last year. “Spike? She grieved for you, too. And I told her everything.”

His brows lowered. “You told her what?”

“Well, not everything. Not, you know, stuff. But I told her how Xander got it wrong.” Her own brows drew together in lingering anger. “He had no idea what happened and put the worst possible spin on it.”

“Xander told –” No wonder the Bit threatened to light him afire.

Buffy nodded, looking anxious. “She misses – missed you, too, Spike. How should I – I mean, how do you break this kind of news? Should I call her before we get there, or just –”

“Where is ‘there?’” Spike interrupted, too overcome by the thought of Dawn no longer hating him to let himself dwell. He had valued the Bit and Joyce, but never enough. He didn’t realize that until after both of them were gone from his life.

“Um, Santa Barbara, just for now. We both wanted to come back home.” Buffy gave him a wry smile. “Or something similar to home. We’ve only been back a few days. I rented a seaside condo for a couple of weeks while we look for a house. Which is why I have a limo. Neither of us have a license, so we needed a driver to –”

Spike swooped in, taking her in his arms for another hard, breathtaking kiss. After a long moment, he broke away enough to press his forehead against hers. “Sorry, love. Just needed to make sure this is all real.”

Buffy looked up at him and cupped his jaw. “It’s all right. Same. I can’t believe this is real, either.” She stroked his cheek. “I love you, Spike.”

“Say it again.” His words were soft, but something in his eyes made it an urgent plea.

“I love you.” Buffy plunged her fingers into his hair, loosening more curls from the gel.

“I love you.” He huffed out a short laugh. “Never thought I’d be,” permitted, “able to say that again.”

“You’re here,” she whispered, awe in her voice and her expression. “You’re really here.”

“I think I am. If I’m not, no one wake me up.”

“‘Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.’”

Spike’s grin became a chuckle. “Did you just quote The Princess Bride at me, Buttercup?”

Buffy giggled. “I did. Sorry, Westley.”

He winced. “Prefer if you didn’t call me by Percy’s name.”

“Percy…? Oh, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.” When he nodded, Buffy snuggled closer. “I forget about him sometimes. Being with Angel, I mean.” Then she remembered someone else. “How is Cordelia?”

“The cheerleader?” He shook his head. “Dunno. No change, I suppose. Angel goes to visit her in the nursing facility every week.”

“That’s so sad.” Buffy thought of vibrant, bitchy Cordelia Chase laying in a hospital bed in a coma, the same way Faith had. It didn’t seem possible. “Do you know what happened? Because I never really got the story from Willow or Faith.”

He shook his head. “All kinds of things left unsaid between that lot. We missed it, what with Sunnydale’s power station being offline, but apparently they ‘won’ Wolfram and Hart for stopping that Jasmine demigod. ’Spect the cheerleader was a casualty in that war.” Spike saw her expression and gave her a reassuring squeeze, but before he could say anything, a movement caught his eye. “That your ride, pet?’ He nodded toward the approaching limo.

She beamed at him. “Our chariot awaits.” Buffy stepped out of the parking garage and waved. The limousine was on their side of the street, so it would be just a quick dash for Spike. She opened the door. “Hey, Rodrigo,” she popped her head in and greeted her driver, catching him just as he was about to open his own door. “You don’t have to get out. Give us just a sec; my boyfriend’s right behind me.”

“Uh… okay.” The driver, an older gentleman, wasn’t quite sure how she got to him so quickly. 

“We’re going back to Santa Barbara. And, oh, could you put up the privacy screen? Thanks.” Buffy didn’t want him to freak out at Spike’s lack of reflection.

“Of course.” 

The assent was a little stilted, and it took a second for Buffy to realize what he thought. Her face went red. “No! Nothing like that, it’s just we haven’t seen each other for months, so we won’t stop talking. I don’t want to distract you,” she added lamely.

“Of course,” Rodrigo said again, the dark glass already sliding up between them.

Cringing a little, she turned and beckoned to Spike. For such a short space, he didn’t even bother to cover his head, just pelted past her into the interior of the limo. Buffy climbed in and closed the door, grinning at Spike as she slid across the bench seat to snuggle against him. “Okay with the windows?”

He looked around at the dark glass and considered the time of day. Just in case he quickly needed cover, he shrugged out of his coat and laid it across his knee. “No worries, kitten. I’ll be fine.”

“‘Kitten,’” she echoed, shaking her head. “You’re the only one who can call me things like that and make me like it.”

Spike smiled down at her, something bashful in his expression. He snaked his arm over the back of the bench seat before settling his hand softly on her shoulder. Then he frowned. “We aren’t moving.”

“Oh!” Buffy reached up and pressed the intercom button on the panel above their heads. “We’re all set, Rodrigo. Thanks.” He didn’t answer, but the long car pulled away from the curb smoothly.

“On our way,” Spike said, immediately sorry for the inane comment.

“I think he thinks we’re going to,” the heat returned to her cheeks, “make out while he’s driving.”

Nothing in Spike’s grin was shy this time. “Probably right about that.” He laid his tongue against his teeth. “Origin of the term, innit?” At Buffy’s blank look, he added, “Rock and roll.”

“Really? Eww.”

Spike swooped in with a kiss for her scrunched up nose. “Bloody hell, you’re adorable.”

Buffy’s expression grew serious, then troubled. “You want to? Here?”

“Snog my girl? Always.”

“No, I mean… Have sex.”

He moved away from her, his hand leaving her shoulder. His sensation-starved body gave its enthusiastic approval of the idea, but inside his demon cowered away. This was far too soon, even if it had been far too long. Spike shifted his duster higher onto his lap and twisted toward her. “Want you, love. Always. But not here.” He looked down. “Not yet.”

Buffy didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath. “Oh. Good. Me, either.” She frowned. “Or, me too.” She closed her eyes and turned her face away for a moment. “Hello, awkward.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. “Part of being your… boyfriend, I know, but I reckon you’ll have to take the lead.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Need to know it’s really what you want.”

Buffy turned back to him, taking him into her arms. “I want.” After a moment, she went on in a small voice. “I’m afraid I’m not enough.”

“What?” He looked down at her bowed head, incredulous.

“You kept,” but Buffy didn’t finish. She pressed herself more tightly against his chest and finally managed to continue. “During our affair,” the words came haltingly, “you had all these things that we did, farther than…”

“Buffy, love,” Spike gently pried her from his chest so she could see him, “desperate to keep you coming back, yeah? Figured if I gave you what no one else had, maybe I could keep things going until…” It was his turn to trail off.

Until she loved him. 

“You’re all I need,” he began anew. “Promise all I want is to make love to you. Perfectly fine with me if you don’t want to venture beyond missionary position.”

She looked horrified. “No! God, no. I’ve done that.” Riley’s name went unspoken. “I just mean,” her eyes dropped, “you’ve done everything, and I don’t want to know about it, but probably with all these beautiful women with bigger boobs and –”

“Buffy,” Spike cut her off, pulling her onto his lap, knocking his coat to the floorboards, “you were just the third woman I slept with.” He frowned. “Fourth. Never can seem to remember Harmony. All the time I was with Drusilla, only wanted her. Wasn’t the same for Dru, but me, I’m built for monogamy.” He brushed a tendril of blond hair from her neck. “And you know how fond I am of your absolutely perfect tits.”

She smacked at his chest and tried very hard to forget about Anya. “The other one… Cecelia?”

“Who? Oh, Cecily. No, love. Relationships were rather more formal back then.” When she just looked up at him, waiting, he grimaced. “Darla. When she needed an itch scratched.” And Angelus was otherwise occupied.

“Oh.” She focused on his careful wording. Women he’d slept with. She hoped he had an easy time forgetting about Angel, too. “That’s all?” she asked in a quiet tone. Spike had been her fourth, too, only his count covered more than a century.

Spike thought of Angelus’ training and was silent for a moment. In the past, he’d been snapped at and punched whenever he mentioned how much of a monster his grandsire was, so he sidestepped. “Long list or short, doesn’t matter. No one in my past compares to you, Buffy. Nothing in my past prepared me for you. We just… fit. Making love to you… You’re the very best I could ever imagine, the one I want to worship with my body, my ultimate lover, from first brush of desire to the utmost, deepest completion. Physically, emotionally, all of it.”

Buffy stared up into his expressive eyes before lifting her hand to cup his cheek. “I-I did like the variety, but,” she licked her lips, “I’d like to try some of those things while we’re making love this time.”

He couldn’t help but follow the path of her tongue along her lush mouth with his gaze, but he suppressed the urge to taste her wet lips. “Always was,” he confided. Seeing her distress, he backtracked. “For me, I know. But… Oh, fuck, love, don’t cry.”

“How… Even when I hurt you?”

“Shh, now, pet. And you’re forgetting that I’m the one who hurt you.”

“Sometimes,” Buffy said, her voice thick with sorrow, “you said ‘no.’”

“Not because I didn’t want you.” Spike brushed a tear from her cheek. “Just wanted something,” more, “different from what we had back then. Went about everything wrong, and I’m so sorry. Give you anything you want, you know I would. What the soul’s for, innit, so I understand that what you want might be different from what you need.”

Buffy’s fingers clenched around the cotton t-shirt. Every word he said was testimony to how much he loved her. He’d given so much to her, for her. 

She put her forehead against his chin. “I never told you – well, I didn’t even realize until it was too late to tell you, but do you know how the whole thing with Angel wounded me?”

He thought of Drusilla, broken and unable to be healed. His arms tightened around her for a moment. “Some notion, yeah.”

“I’m supposed to be this, I don’t know, bastion of good, but I cost one of the good guys his soul. So, maybe I was a terrible Slayer, or I shouldn’t even be the Slayer. Like maybe I should never have been in heaven. No, let me finish,” Buffy put in when she felt his chest expand as he drew in air to refute this. “I know it isn’t logical, but that’s how I felt.” She lifted her head and met his eyes, cupping his jaw again.

“Then you went and got your soul because of me. Nothing ever touched that doubt I had about myself until you…” She searched his face. “I know I can’t really understand what it cost you to do that, or how hard it was to walk that road from the first time we met until now.” The Slayer blinked, more tears spilling from her flooded emerald eyes. “But you getting your soul, that healed me in here,” she dropped her hand to touch her chest, “a wound I didn’t even know I had. Made me feel worthy again.”

“Oh, love.” This wasn’t what he expected at all. Spike took her hand and brought it to his lips, pressing a kiss onto her knuckles. “You’re worthy. You shine with it. You are The Slayer. Saw it right away, and more clearly through the years.” He kissed her hand again, softer.

“I couldn’t believe that, not until you…” Buffy sniffled, and Spike took the pause in conversation to move his mouth from her hand to her lips.

“Wish you’d never once been hurt,” he whispered between light butterfly kisses. “Sometimes I wish the burden of it never came to you.”

“Only sometimes?” She managed a wry smile.

“Who else could have borne it? All that fire Buffy Summers carries inside, all that goodness, strength,” a smile curved his mouth through his own tears, “stubbornness.”

A tiny laugh broke through. “I’m so glad you came back to me. I only know who I am when you’re with me. I like who I am with you, really with you. I love you, Spike.”

“I love you.” His voice was rough.

“Never leave me again.”

“Never. Couldn’t bear to be away from you, when you say those words.” He’d been starved for them, waiting his whole existence to hear them. Spike suspected that only Buffy’s confession of love would ever have truly satisfied that bottomless need. He pulled her into a hard embrace, hiding his face over her shoulder. “Know it makes me sound like a right prat, but I’ve lived and unlived over a century wanting to hear you say them.”

“I’m so sorry I made you wait,” she whispered.

“Worth it, worth anything.” Mostly in control of his emotions, he eased up on the hug and leaned back, letting go of her enough to brush her hair, longer now than he’d seen it for years, from her cheek.

“I love you,” she said again, her eyes full of promises.

“I love you, too.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Love hearing you say it.”

“I didn’t know I loved you, and I know how stupid that sounds. But I think I’d been falling in love with you since you helped with Glory.” She wiped her wet face absently.

“Doesn’t sound stupid,” he said, looking dazed. “Didn’t know I loved you until I had a nightmare about it.”

She ignored the word ‘nightmare.’ “Well, I fought it better than you did. Total denial, right? But I couldn’t deny the big thing: you stayed. You said you loved me, and I didn’t give you a bit of encouragement, not even that crumb. But you stayed.

“Angel said he loved me, and I loved him as much as a stupid teenager can. And he walked away. Every time I saw him, he left me again. He said the words, but…” She hung her head. “I never understood, because…” Buffy let out a breath. “Because of all the shit when he lost the soul. Because only true love would be worth the deaths of all those blond girls he killed ‘symbolically.’ They were still dead, still mourned by the people who missed them. Mourned for them the same way Giles mourned Ms. Calendar.

“It should have been true love,” she took a breath, “but it wasn’t. It was just… first love, and how often does that last? I didn’t know him, because he never let me. And he didn’t know me, because I was just… some reward to him. A goal or something?” She shook her head.

“You couldn’t see it because of the curse,” Spike said kindly. When she looked puzzled, he added, “You thought he was being noble because he couldn’t be around you.”

She nodded. “Oh, yeah. And didn’t that make it special, too, the whole star-crossed lovers thing.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “Anyway, that’s why I was there today, to get him out of my life for good.”

“Anniversary or somethin’ like that?”

Buffy opened her mouth to answer, then just laughed, the heavy atmosphere lifting. “No. Um, because of your nose, actually.” She bopped said nose lightly with a fingertip.

Spike tilted his head. “My nose.” Twelve decades with Drusilla didn’t help understand this insane statement.

She giggled before sobering. Leaning in she traced his features with the pads of her fingers, soft and reverent. “I held on a hundred and forty-seven days before I broke down and started mourning.”

“Oh, kitten.” He took her hand and placed a kiss in her palm.

“I didn’t have a picture of you.” She shrugged. “I mean, we had photos of Mom from Aunt Arlene, school photos from stuff people posted online, but nothing of you.” Buffy closed her eyes for a moment, giving her voice time to grow steady. “I started to forget what you looked like. Your nose, specifically. That’s how this all got started….”

***

Buffy told her story as the limousine maneuvered through Los Angeles traffic and headed north toward Santa Barbara. As always, Spike was a rapt listener, encouraging her to elaborate about her London neighborhood, Dawn’s school, and any pubs where she might have lifted a pint.

“So, the Bit was in on planning your revenge?” he asked, an achingly familiar smirk gracing his mouth.

She was still on his lap, his tireless arms holding her close, her super strength keeping him in her embrace. “Yeah, she wanted to come with – Oh, my God! Dawn.”

Spike tensed. “What about Dawn?”

“I can’t just bring you back out of the blue. She’ll throw a warbler.”

He grinned at the mangled ‘throw a wobbly’ phrase, imagining Dawn tossing a songbird into the air. “Yeah, can’t say I’ve missed the earsplitting sound of her when she goes spare.”

“Should I call her now?” Buffy’s eyes were huge with nerves and indecision. “I should call her.” She bit her lip.

Spike’s eyes were fixed on the nibbling of her even white teeth. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Pro’ly.”

“Maybe when we’re closer to the condo. I don’t want to keep her waiting all that time. That would be cruel.”

“However shall we while away the minutes?”

“What?” she asked, puzzled by the phrase.

She loved him; she said so several times. And she was sitting on his lap. Spike’s hands dropped from where they chastely, if familiarly, rested on her back to her hips. He kneaded her bottom through the leather, then pulled her along his legs until she was against his groin.

“Oh.” Buffy’s heartrate picked up. “But we were going to –”

“Nothing to say we can’t fool around.” His eyes were hot, even if his expression was only hopeful.

She moved then, an athlete in full control of her instrument, straddling him and pinning his shoulders against the plush seat. In one swift, fluid motion, Buffy molded her body to his, chest to breast, rampant cock to heated core. “I love to watch you come.” She bit her lip after the words were out, uncertain, but Spike’s groan and the way he bucked against her provided the encouragement she needed. “I-I missed seeing that.”

“Say that one more time, you’ll see it again,” he managed. Spike’s eyes were wide with surprise at her forthright desire, but hope burned in his eyes. “Buffy… Starved, here. All my senses, just… gone for so long. The way you feel, your heat,” he breathed in, his eyelids fluttering for a moment, “the perfume of your body. Wish I…” He hesitated before giving her a frank look. “Tell me, love. Need you to tell me what you want, how much you want right now. If anything.”

Her heart broke, but only a little. They’d get past this tentative phase, she was sure. No one was as confident in lovemaking as Spike. But she couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder, as if the driver might drop the privacy screen at any time. “Uh, fingers? Hands? I want to touch you, too,” and her vampire shifted beneath her once more, “and I can’t wait to feel you touch me again.”

Spike knew he could probably persuade her that they had enough privacy to do everything they desired, but it was no longer in him to push her past any boundary. Instead, he slid a finger into her trousers, following the waistband to the button below her navel. “Never keep a lady waiting,” he murmured, just before her mouth found his.

***

A half hour later, Buffy was perched sedately on the limo’s side seat next to her boyfriend, fiddling with her cell phone as Spike tried to smooth her hair with his fingers. “I won’t be able to look Rodrigo in the face,” the Slayer muttered.

“You’ve saved his life and the lives of everyone he cares multiple times,” Spike said, giving her a frank look. “Sod him and his judgmental arse.” A smug smile broke across his face as he gazed adoringly at her. They’d migrated across every one of the limo’s seats, mostly due to the frustratingly tight leather trousers Buffy wore. “Besides, you’re glowing.”

“See, this is why I need you.”

He lifted his eyes and shook his head at the very idea before pulling her against his side. Spike took the opportunity to cup her breast through the silky material of her shirt. “Mmm, love. Such a sweet handful. Glad you aren’t starved these days.”

She ran her hand over his chest, squeezing his right pectoral muscle. “You, either.” Buffy was sorry he’d just tucked in his t-shirt.

Spike gave Buffy a seductive grin, then pushed her away. “You said you’d call her. Stop procrastinatin.’”

“I’m not!” she protested. “I mean, we were talking about Rodrigo. This is my means of transport–”

“So stop paying for his services. Use your funds to buy a car of some kind. I’ll be your chauffer.”

“At night.”

He waved off the limitation. “Then I’ll finish teaching Dawn to drive, even teach you, if you want. Call her.”

“Yes, but I had such a hard time accepting that it was you. What if–”

Spike knew she was nervous, and that made him nervous, too. Maybe Dawn hadn’t missed him as much as Buffy let on. “We have to be close to your condo, love.”

She stopped at his interruption and gripped the edge of the seat with her free hand. “You’re right,” Buffy said simply. She pressed the speed dial for Dawn’s phone.

Her sister answered right away. “Buffy! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. More than fine, because –”

“Did you get in?”

“I did.”

“Did you get pictures?”

Buffy couldn’t help but grin. “I did.” Spike had grabbed his duster from the floorboards and was frowning in confusion. He pulled the stolen thermos from one of the lower pockets, answering the unspoken question of what forgotten object was inside. His eyelids fluttered, and he let out a moan of anticipation that sent a surge of renewed lust through Buffy’s body.

“Oooh, I can’t wait to see them. Where are you? Are you on your way back?”

“I’m,” the limo slowed and rolled to a stop, “here, actually.” Spike chugged the blood, his throat working. It was a lovely sight.

“You didn’t call until just now?” Dawn complained. “I was worried!”

“I have a really good reason, mom,” she said sarcastically.

“It better be.”

“It is, I promise.” She covered the microphone end with her hand and reached to press the intercom button. “Rodrigo, could you pull around to the side of the building?” The sun was beginning its westward slide now, but she’d rather be safe than use the lobby elevators. She went back to Dawn. “I brought, uh, something back with me.” Who was currently running a finger over his teeth, checking to make sure they weren’t coated with the blood he’d stolen from Harmony’s desk.

“Ooh, a present?”

“No, something I found at Wolfram and Hart. Way unexpected. Hold on just a moment.”

She lost the gist of Dawn’s complaints as the limo pulled to the back staircase for the condominiums. Buffy opened the door to judge the angle of daylight and nodded toward the best spot for Spike. As he dashed across the short danger zone, she alit from the limo and sent an overly bright smile toward the driver. “Thanks!” she said cheerily, waving like mad. “Could you wait? I’ll be back down in about fifteen minutes.” She needed to make a run to a butcher shop. Then she put her cell phone to her ear and made a face at her amused boyfriend.

“I don’t wanna play guessing games.” Dawn’s voice had more than a hint of whine to it.

“I won’t make you guess, but I want you to be prepared, is all.” Buffy joined Spike, who curled a supportive arm around her waist.

“Prepared? That doesn’t sound good.”

“Remember why I asked Willow for that memory spell?”

“Sure. Spike’s nose.”

“That something I’m bringing, it’s really someone. And let’s just say that remembering won’t be a problem now.”

Dawn was silent against her ear as they climbed to the first landing. Then she said in a small voice. “Buffy… Don’t – That’s not even funny.”

“Even we get miracles once in a while. I’m walking upstairs with one right now.”

“Buffy…?”

“I’m so sorry I took him away, Dawnie, but I hope this makes up for it.”

She was waiting at the top of the stairs on the fourth floor, her long brown hair swinging forward and her face anxious as she peered down. One of Dawn’s hands still clutched her unfolded phone, and the other covered her mouth. As her sister saw their blond heads come into view, she made a short keening sound.

Spike’s fingers clenched convulsively against Buffy’s lower back, then he moved free, bracing himself for a punch or a kick. “Nib–” But he no longer had the right to call her that. “Dawn,” he managed in lieu of the pet name.

“Spike?” she whispered. Then she launched herself down the remaining three steps, throwing her arms around his neck, nearly toppling all of them back down the stairwell. 

Buffy caught Spike’s sleeve with the hand holding the now unnecessary cell phone and the safety rail with her other. She was grinning so broadly it hurt her face, but she couldn’t stop.

“Are you real?” Dawn asked, the words muffled against Spike’s duster.

“As of this morning, I think so.” He made it to the landing, holding onto Dawn with a careful grip.

“How?” Dawn looked at her sister, bewildered. “What did you do?”

Buffy shrugged, though she really couldn’t pull off nonchalant while glowing with happiness. “Apparently the universe wanted to reward us for getting payback on Angel.”

Struggling to regain her footing, she kept her death grip around Spike’s neck, staring at his face in disbelief. “You’re really here?”

“God, I hope so.” Spike squeezed her, still careful of her fragile human body.

Dawn slammed into him once more, breaking into sobs. “I’m sorry,” she wailed. “I should have said it…” She trailed off, her open mouth against his shoulder.

“Got nothing to be sorry about,” he said gruffly, gliding his hand up and down her back, trying to soothe her. 

“I m-missed you,” Dawn whispered.

“Missed you, too, Bit.” The nickname hit both of them hard. Spike met Buffy’s eyes over the teenager’s shoulder, his own tears running freely.

“Aww, you guys,” she said, catching her sister between them in a bear hug. 

After a moment, Dawn squirmed free enough to make it a true group hug. She pulled away to look at Spike again, making sure it wasn’t a trick, her upper lip suspiciously shiny. “I’m so happy!” she blubbered on a loud sob.

“I can tell,” Buffy laughed, but she sniffled, too, as she steered the two people she loved best in the world toward the door. “Come on inside, Spike. Welcome home.”


	10. Eve of Destruction

Buffy took the elevator this time, carefully holding the paper sack loaded with heavy bags of blood and topped with a selection of food from In-N-Out Burger. She’d checked the yellow pages for the closest butcher shop, and then left a weepy Dawn sitting on the couch with Spike. Hopefully the two of them had plenty of time to talk through things.

She really was thinking of dropping the car service. They’d only paid for a week, and finding the interior of the limo smelling of disinfectant when she got back in made her feel cringy and also highly irritated.

Then she laughed. Whether or not to drop a judgmental limousine driver was her worst problem right now. Her life was awesome. The elevator slowed and stopped on the fourth floor. Buffy hurried toward the condo door, so ready to be back with her family. As expected, both were starving and both had matching bloodshot blue eyes surrounded by lashes still wet with tears. Dawn had a death-grip on Spike’s hand, and the vampire wore a permanent grin.

Almost two hours later, the three of them were still sitting at the table, the Slayer in comfortable clothes that allowed her to eat (and would give easier access to Spike’s clever fingers than tight leather). They talked and laughed the whole time, trading stories of how they managed in London and Los Angeles, respectively. Buffy’s heart hurt because Spike thought he was going to go to hell after all he’d done, but Dawn just got mad at Angel all over again. 

Buffy told him about how Giles was determined that the new version of the Council be different, but that she didn’t like the way the Watcher wanted to build an army. When she and Willow decided to extend the spell to all potentials, not just the ones gathered on the Hellmouth, they thought maybe a couple dozen unidentified girls were still out there. It turned out there were hundreds, and Giles wanted to gather them instead of leaving them in their communities. Spike, of course, noticed the real issue, the guilt Buffy felt for imposing a sacred duty on all those girls the same way it had happened to her. He reached for her hand across the table, giving her slender fingers a squeeze of support. Unhappy with the serious turn of the conversation, Dawn demanded to see the pictures from Wolfram and Hart. 

Her gambit worked, with her high-pitched squeals of delight dispelling the heavy atmosphere. “How did you get his Mohawk that fuchsia color?” she asked with a sigh of satisfaction.

“Saw Harmony change toner cartridges in the laser printer once,” Spike said with a shrug. “Got the blue refill on her dress. Ruined it, she said.”

“Harmony?” Dawn asked in disbelief. “You mean Harmony Kendall?”

“Yeah, Peaches’ secretary.”

“He must have ticked off karma really bad.”

“Or lost a bet,” Buffy said in an undertone. Spike poked her in the ribs in retaliation.

They were still laughing and picking at the remnants of their fast food feast even as they made plans for dinner. Buffy wanted to find a place that served a blooming onion, while Dawn lobbied for Mexican again. Only Spike heard the knock at the door.

“You ladies expecting anyone?” he asked, his alert posture cluing in the Slayer despite his casual words.

“Probably Rodrigo,” Buffy said lightly as she accepted the stake Spike fished from his duster. “Bringing us condoms and hand sanitizer,” she muttered under her breath. Behind her, she heard the scrape of a chair. Something inside her loosened because Spike had her back. Everything was right in her world once again.

Slayer reaction times, Spike thought, were one of the more amazing things he’d ever witnessed. Buffy had the door open and a short, pungent demon pressed against the wall with the stake at his throat in under a half-second.

“Whistler,” she snarled. “Please tell me you aren’t here about Angel.”

“I’m not here about Angel,” he agreed. “Could you let go of the threads?”

She released her handful of shirt, stepping back and wiping her hand against her shorts.

“Who’s the demon?” Spike asked, somehow already beside her.

“Half demon,” Whistler said, resettling his hat, “and I’m surprised she hasn’t told you about me.”

“She told me.” Dawn stood from the table, her arms folding, giving Whistler a narrow look.

“Wow, tough room.” He turned to Spike. “I’m Whistler. I’m an agent from the Powers That Be.”

“Yeah? What do those wankers want with the Slayer?”

“Nothing. At least, not right now.” He gave Spike his best smarmy smile. “You, however…”

And he was against the wall again. “Leave him alone,” Buffy commanded, her voice tight. “He’s given everything already.”

“That’s for him to decide, don’t you think, doll face?” The agent reestablished eye contact with Spike.

The vampire’s brows drew together. “Love,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. She was trembling. “Is he really from the Powers?”

After a moment, Buffy gave a short nod. She let go of Whistler, again wiping her hand, and stepped back against the comfort of Spike’s body.

Dawn had seen enough. “Say what you came to tell us, then get out. You’re stinking up the place.”

Whistler shot her an offended look, but straightened once more and sighed. “Spike of the Order of Aurelius, you have something the Powers want.”

“We left the amulet at Wolfram and Hart,” Buffy said quickly, feeling a shot of cold fear along her spine. No one was going to take her vampire away, not even the Powers. 

Whistler shrugged, his focus still on Spike. “Not the amulet. That was just a tool for lower beings.”

Buffy bristled. “I don’t see the Powers stepping up to fight the First Evil the way we ‘lower beings’ did.”

He did turn to her now. “And it was lower being Willow Rosenberg and three other humans who pulled the Warrior of the People from heaven and allowed the First Evil to upset the balance.” He grimaced and shook his head, raising his hands. “Let me try again. I don’t mean ‘lower beings’ in a bad way, Slayer.”

Spike put a hidden hand on the small of Buffy’s back. “Bit’s right. Let him say what he came to say. Sooner he does, the sooner he leaves.”

“Right!” Whistler agreed, brightening visibly. He turned away from the blond couple by the door to walk further into the condo, looking around curiously. “Sweet. All furnished and everything. I never rented a condo before.” He went to the kitchen and considered the visible appliances, a blender, toaster, and coffeemaker. “Man, I need a vacation.”

“Whistler!” Buffy’s patience was at an end.

“Fine. Jeez.” He nodded toward Spike. “They want what’s on your foot.”

All four of them stared at Spike’s worn combat boots. Three of them lifted their gaze to look at Whistler in disbelief. Dawn broke the silence. “You interrupted, like, the first minute of happiness we’ve had in months to get Spike’s big ol’ stompy boots?” she asked incredulously.

“No, of course not.” Whistler rolled his eyes. “It’s what’s on his boot. The right one.”

Spike lifted his foot, turning his ankle to the side. Giving the agent a chary look, he lifted his thigh higher, bent his knee, and found himself staring at a pale blotch caught in the tread. “Oh,” he breathed in sudden understanding. 

“What is that?” Buffy asked, spotting it, too.

“What’s what?” Dawn asked anxiously. She couldn’t see from her angle.

Spike, standing on one leg like a flamingo, bent to pick the whitish bit free.

“Eww, don’t touch it,” Buffy said, wrinkling her nose even though she didn’t know what it was.

Considering the tiny bit of Eve’s flesh he held between his thumb and forefinger, Spike asked, “What use is this?”

“She’s a child of the Senior Partners,” Whistler said with a shrug. 

“Ohhh,” Buffy whispered in a tone of realization. The tip of Eve’s finger, like hair or fingernails, could be used to fuel a magic spell. 

Or to target one. 

“What, ‘ohhh?’” Dawn asked, snappish. Buffy pantomimed snipping with scissors. “Ohhh,” she echoed, putting together the pieces.

Spike’s attention went to Whistler. “I let you have this, you have to make sure Angel’s team doesn’t get caught in the blowback.”

The agent nodded.

“Or this vampire bint who works there, Harmony…” He trailed off and looked at Buffy for help.

“Harmony Kendall. Or Angel himself,” she added, giving Spike an apologetic look.

He shrugged. “Yeah, or your Powers’ broody champion. He’s family. Barely.”

“Anything else?” Whistler sighed.

“No. Catch.”

Spike chucked the bit of flesh across the counter into the kitchen. With unexpected speed, the agent produced a vial, caught Eve’s fingertip neatly, and stoppered it as if it might escape. Whistler made the container disappear into his jacket and gave Spike a small smile. “Well. Nice doing business with you, Spike.”

Spike gave Dawn a sidelong look and an identical one to Buffy. “Uh, sure.”

The agent resumed his inspection of the kitchen, reaching out to touch a burner on the range. “Much easier to work with than you, Slayer. You really let us down.”

“I let you down?” She raised a sarcastic eyebrow.

Whistler opened a cabinet to peer at the small collection of plates and bowls. “You were supposed to put Angel on a path of redemption. Look where he is now.”

“What?” Buffy whispered, going still.

Whistler nodded in agreement with himself, checking another cabinet. “He was supposed to be on a mission of atonement, helping you. Now, he’s –”

“Bollocks,” Spike snarled.

“Excuse me?”

“Rubbish,” Spike sneered at the agent. “Rot. Utter tripe.” He was across the counter and in front of Whistler faster than Buffy had ever seen him move, slamming the cabinet door shut. “Bullshit.” He loomed threateningly over the agent, his palm still on the cupboard.

“You have an opinion, vampire?”

“Buffy’s job is to stand against the agents of darkness,” Spike said, his eyes burning amber, a half second away from vamping fully. “It isn’t to handhold serial killers and nursemaid them through the DTs.

“You went to Angel. You dragged him outta the gutter and set him on Buffy’s scent. You didn’t go to her and ask her to take on that burden, because it wasn’t hers. He wants to redeem himself, fine. But there’s nothing one person can do to redeem another. It’s got to come from within.” Spike unconsciously touched his chest. “So you can take that load of guilt you’re peddlin’ and shove it up your smelly arse, you manky little tosser.”

In the silence that followed, Whistler looked up at the seething vampire, then at the Slayer, whose stricken look was fading into realization, quickly followed by a building anger.

Whistler shrugged. “One last test. You passed.” He fished something out of a different pocket and tossed it toward Buffy, who caught it automatically. “The Powers were going to give him the Shanshu, but I happened to be in a dimension where the Amara treasure was never found and had a different idea.”

Buffy looked at the ring in her hand, at the poison-green gem. Her eyes went wide. “The same one?”

“Yep. Since this time he isn’t going to rush directly to find you, what with you being right here and all, there’s a few effects other than sunlight-resistance you might want to –”

Spike had been staring at Buffy, a longing expression on his face, but it faded into something guarded. He spoke only to her, overriding Whistler. “Don’t have to have it, love. Best if it’s destroyed.”

Buffy had already walked to him, her hand held out. “But you could…” They could do so much more together.

“Will it work if he swallows it?” Dawn put in quickly.

Whistler pursed his lips, considering. “Yeah, I don’t see why not.”

The two sisters exchanged an intense look. Buffy slapped her hand over Spike’s mouth, which was predictably open as he prepared to argue his point, her palm pushing the ring past his teeth.

Dawn appeared next to them, holding the Styrofoam cup they’d been using for his blood. “Here,” she said, holding the straw up to his face.

Spike swerved away from the stick-like object jabbing toward his eyeball. “Oi, watch it,” he warned, the words garbled by the jewelry in his mouth.

“Drink,” Buffy ordered.

Glaring at both of them, Spike bent his head and captured the drinking straw between his lips. The Summers sisters watched him pull in a couple ounces of the dark fluid.

“Open,” Dawn commanded.

“Let’s see.”

“Bloody Nurse Ratched,” Spike grumbled, but he opened his mouth. Then, of course, he had to turn his head toward Buffy and curl his tongue.

“No more dusting,” Dawn said with satisfaction, wrapping her arms around him.

“No more leaving.” Buffy wrapped her arms around him, too, making them both wince. Dawn pulled back with a glare at her sister, holding her squished elbow.

“And since everyone knows the ring is destroyed, then they’ll think he just came back like this,” Dawn added with a good deal of satisfaction.

“Not that it matters so much now that it’s a done deal,” Whistler mocked, “but besides being invincible and able to walk in sunlight, the gem also gives you a reflection.”

“Cool,” Dawn said, grinning. “You don’t have any excuse to keep that same, played look.”

Spike shot her a quick glare, but his attention went back to the agent. “The ring wasn’t the only thing I found.”

The two demons stared at each other for a long moment. Then Whistler shrugged. They all heard a thud from the direction of the bedrooms, then a single clang! as something fell over.

“More expensive than the Shanshu, but worth it to keep a champion on the field.”

The blond vampire froze for a moment, then dipped his head in acknowledgement. “And Peaches has a reason to keep trying.”

“You took away the other reason.” Whistler smirked. “Spike rushes in where Angel fears to tread.”

Spike lowered his brows. “Pope? Really? And the girl belongs to herself.”

Buffy frowned. Huh? Pope? Was that something from the Bible? “Look, I really don’t care. Is there something else you need, or are we done here?”

“We’re done.” Whistler turned toward the door, then paused. “Oh, almost forgot.” He fished in his trouser pocket and groped around, then laid three wheat pennies on the kitchen counter. “These charms will keep you hidden from the Senior Partners. Carry ’em, oh,” he waggled his hand in midair, “about a week. Powers should be finished by then.” He patted where the vial rested in his jacket.

“Bye,” Dawn said in a too-bright voice.

“What is it with you people? Why are you so unfriendly?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Buffy gritted out. “Maybe because we don’t trust the Powers That Be?”

Whistler threw his hands up, but he started walking toward the door again. “Famous adage about not shooting the messenger.” Just as he began to let himself out, he flinched. Looking upward, he rolled his eyes. “Slayer? Just a suggestion from upstairs. If you want to keep the vampire in top condition, might want to let him take a sip from you every couple of days.”

“The Slayer isn’t food.” Spike’s statement was more snarl than baritone.

Whistler sighed. “The Gem of Amara lets you super-process blood, burn it more efficiently, get better gas mileage. And Slayer blood is like high-octane fuel for vampires. You won’t need much,” he focused on Buffy, “and you won’t miss it.”

She put her hand on Spike’s chest to quell the rising growl. “That’s all he’d need? Really?” He hated butcher’s blood, she knew, but the idea of human blood on the menu raised her inner Slayer hackles. If it were her blood, though…

Whistler shrugged and nodded, then opened the door. “Yeah, that’s all he’d need.”

“Buffy!” Spike said, appalled that she would even consider it.

“Well, kids, it’s been a hoot.” Whistler tipped his hat and closed the door.

“What’s this ‘sandshoe’ thing?” Buffy demanded.

“And what was that noise?” Then Dawn grabbed Spike’s hand. “Never mind now. Come on out to the balcony, where it’s sunny. I want to see your new trick.”

Spike pulled free, taking a step back and holding up his hands. “Bloody hell!” He pointed to Dawn. “Should be the rest of the Amara treasure.” Then he pointed to Buffy. “Some soddin’ prophecy about a souled vampire doin’ good and turnin’ into a human.” His finger went down and curled into the rest of his fist, which he lowered with effort. “And you can put away any notion that I’m going to treat you like a milk cow!”

Dawn put her hands on her hips. “Are you calling my sister a cow?”

Buffy’s lower lip wibbled as she looked up at Spike. “You don’t want to bite me?”

He stared between them, then put his head in his hands. “Where’s a knife? Gonna cut this gem outta me, then find someone to bloody well stake me.”

Dawn put a comforting hand on Spike’s shoulder and turned on her sister. “He’s been corporal for, like, four hours. Give him a break.”

Both of them gave her incredulous looks. “Anyway, it’s ‘corp-o-real,’” Buffy informed her sister in a superior tone.

Dawn scrunched up her face. “Corpse-o-real? Well, that’s descriptive, I guess.”

Spike laughed. “Corporeal,” he clarified, “and here where we’re less pretentious, just say ‘solid.’” He moved closer and put an arm around each of them. “I love you,” he leaned to put a kiss on Dawn’s cheek, “and I love you. Even if you both drive me around the bloody bend.” He put a kiss on Buffy’s forehead. “And, yeah, I’m a little overwhelmed. Are we sure that smelly demon is really an agent for the Powers and not chaos?”

“He’s legit,” Buffy admitted reluctantly.

“One way to find out,” Dawn said decisively, dragging Spike toward the balcony again. Because of all the time spent watching sunsets and sunrises as a ghost, as well as his longtime habit of ignoring daylight when he needed to move about, it didn’t take Spike long to overcome his sunlight aversion and step into the afternoon rays that slanted against the building.

As amazing as it was to watch a vampire not catch fire, Dawn’s interest quickly waned. She suggested a walk on the beach, then went inside for her sandals when the two blonds agreed to the plan.

“What Whistler said about my blood,” Buffy began as soon as her sister moved out of earshot.

“You’re extremely biteable,” Spike interrupted, giving her a reassuring leer.

“I know it’s not your soul. You never bit me when we were,” she squinted up at him, “uh, when your chip stopped working on me.”

“Matter of principle.”

“What does that mean?”

He sighed. “Just trying to prove I wasn’t a monster, that,” Spike looked aside, “my motives were pure. Ish.”

“Oh. Do you want to?” Buffy whispered, not looking at him, either. “Now?”

“Bite you right now? No.” Spike moved closer and mumbled, “When we were together, when you… When I… Yeah, then.”

“We could,” Buffy licked her lips and glanced at him, “try that. If you want.”

Spike was pretty sure his dick just did an entire Tex Avery cartoon wolf impression behind his zipper, complete with tongue dragging on the floor, bugged out eyes, wolf whistles, and ah-oogah horn blast. He shifted and just barely managed not to adjust himself. “Uhh…” 

Buffy knew that she wasn’t always the most perceptive person, but even she realized she’d just left her vampire nonverbal. “So, you’re interested?” she purred.

Before he could answer, they whipped around at the sound of Dawn’s high-decibel shriek. They nearly broke the doorframe as both of them tried to go through at the same time, rushing to kill the threat.

Dawn stood in the hall in front of her bedroom, holding a jewel-encrusted goblet. She whirled on them. “Why did Whistler have to put the dead guy in my room?” she demanded. Buffy and Spike drew her back, interposing their strong bodies between her and the very, very dead guy on the floor beside her bed.

Spike took in the skeleton surrounded by heaps of gold and jewels, narrowing his eyes at the eyesore of a necklace resting on the ribcage. He let out a little huff of recognition.

Buffy gave him a suspicious look. “Who is that?”

“Always figured that was Amara,” he replied, shrugging.

Dawn held up the goblet. “This is what fell over.”

“Wow. I’ve never seen anything like this.” Buffy’s eyes were wide as she took in the hoard.

“Oh, like you aren’t a millionaire.”

“Well, that’s like… bank statements. This is real.”

“And so’s the dead guy,” Dawn pointed out.

“We could keep him,” Buffy suggested. “Use wire or fishing line, hang him up in a corner at Halloween. No one would ever guess it’s an actual skeleton.”

Her sister stared at her in horror. “You are so weird.”

“Hey, it’s the easiest thing I can think of! You know how much I hate getting rid of bodies.”

Spike shook his head and stalked back down the hall. “This has been a very long day,” he muttered, leaving the girls staring at Amara and all his sparkly valuables.

The two of them found him standing at the kitchen counter a couple of minutes later, doing a thorough search of the duster spread out before him. “Um, Spike, what are you looking for?” Dawn asked. She was wearing a diadem and several strings of pearls.

He went still for a moment before bracing his arms on the edge of the counter. “You know what the highlight of my day was yesterday? Telling Percy an Irishman joke in front of Angel. He didn’t even laugh.”

“Angel?” Dawn asked, confused. In her experience, Angel never laughed.

“No, Perc– Never mind. Look, I really want a drink just now.” He stopped leaning on the counter and pushed his coat away, bunching up the leather. “Found a nickel and two dimes, so the pint is a non-starter.” He sighed. “At least I found my lighter.” 

Buffy twisted one of the rings stacked on her fingers. “We’re sorry, Spike. We got distracted by the sparkly and forgot about the pretty.” She stepped around the counter to touch his arm. “Are you okay?”

He closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Yeah. Fine.” Spike sighed and forced a smile. “Fine. What did we decide for dinner? We can postpone that walk on the beach, if you don’t mind, just –”

“We’ll take you to dinner,” Dawn’s eyes went to Buffy in concession, “some place with a blooming onion. And we’ll buy you a drink. Well, she will. I can’t, since we aren’t in the UK anymore.”

“Is that okay?”

“’Course. Then we’ll have that walk on the beach, and I reckon I’ll head out, find someplace to crash for the night.”

It took a second for his words to sink in. The reaction, if delayed, was explosive.

“What!?”

“No!”

Buffy’s eyes flashed dangerously as she grabbed his wrist. “You’re not leaving!”

“You’re staying here.” Dawn actually stomped her foot and immediately looked embarrassed.

“Here?” With them?

“Of course.” Buffy’s voice was gentle now, beseeching. “With us. You can sleep with me. It’s a big bed.” She looked down, blushing at her presumption. “Or I can take the couch.” She wasn’t going to make him feel used again, not ever.

Dawn’s eyes glittered with unshed tears. “You have to stay. You’re family.”

“You’re home.” The Slayer looked around at the condo. “Or, wherever we are, that’s your home.”

Spike staggered back a step, staring at each of them in turn. “You really…” He couldn’t find words.

Taking off the diadem, Dawn set it on his coat and came around the counter to flank him. “Do you think we’re ever going to let you out of our sight?”

“Maybe in six or seven years, but not before.” Buffy gave him a tender smile.

“Except when we’re distracted by stinky agents from the Powers and unexpected treasure hoards. How often can that happen, even in our lives?”

The sisters converged on him, pushing him back against the sink, wrapping him in a tangle of arms and feelings.

Spike held their warmth against his chest, his breath coming harsh for a moment, but he didn’t sob. This was real. His ladies forgave him and wanted him home. 

They loved him, just as he loved them.

A snatch of a poem occurred to him. “Weary, wandering brother,” he misquoted, “come you back unto the fireside and be comrade with your kin.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “You haven’t even started drinking yet and already with the poetry.” But she snuggled closer with a little sigh of contentment.

Buffy felt the need to declaim, too. Even if she wasn’t quite as literate, she found words that worked. “Never gonna give you up,” she promised, “never gonna let you down. Never gonna run around and desert you.”

Dawn straightened up and joined her sister. “Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye.” Both of them were singing the words by the end.

“Oh, bloody hell.” Spike looked down at the two smiling faces and gave in, finishing the chorus of the old Rick Astley song with them. He pressed his lips to Dawn’s forehead and gave Buffy a quick peck on the lips. “This is what my newfound life is going to be, then?”

“Our life,” Buffy corrected him.

“Laughter.” Dawn nodded decisively.

“Silliness.”

“Oh, and singing, only with more kitchen utensils. For, you know, microphones.”

“And love,” Buffy added.

He met her eyes for a lingering moment, then turned to give Dawn her due. “Well, all right, then.”


	11. Nothing Really Disappears from the Internet

Around the time that Dawn began to fake-yawn in Santa Barbara, mentioning how she was tired and that everybody should probably go to bed while winking outrageously at Buffy, in Los Angeles Wesley Wyndham-Pryce ushered a sorcerer out of Angel’s office. He gave the oily human a pained smile and closed the door behind him. “You should get some rest, Angel.”

Fred, sitting on the desk, gave her vampire friend a sympathetic smile. “We’ll find someone else tomorrow, okay?”

Gunn, his hands shoved in the pockets of his trousers, ruining the tailored lines, considered the word tattooed across Angel’s forehead. “And you don’t know what she meant, using that word? Liar?” His voice fell unconsciously into cross-examination territory.

“No,” Angel growled, but his eyes went to the side, not looking at anyone. Lorne had been in briefly, because he knew the best cosmetic surgeons in Beverly Hills, but a hasty trip to a highly-recommended doctor with the latest laser didn’t erase the tattoo. If he could keep out of sight just until another sorcerer, a stronger one, got called in, no one would know.

Except for Eve, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t say anything for different reasons.

Gunn shot Wesley a skeptical look, who just gave an uncomfortable shrug. Angel had obviously lied to Buffy about something, and it hadn’t been because her old boyfriend didn’t tell her about Spike returning. Fred was certain Buffy hadn’t known. “Crazy ex-girlfriend,” he said lightly. Though he’d never thought of Buffy as falling into that category. Faith, yes, but not Buffy.

“Can you turn the camera thing back on?” Angel asked in a pitiful tone.

“Sure.” Fred leaned over and pressed a couple of buttons on her laptop. A red light came on the tiny camera clipped on top a moment before Angel’s image showed up in a window on the screen.

He peered at the image, reaching up to touch his shorn hair. Vampire hair took so long to grow, it would be more than a full year before it was the previous length. The tattoo was one thing, but he was going to kill Spike for ruining his hair.

While he was staring at the dark fuzz over his scalp, Fred bit back on a smile. She caught Gunn covering his grin. Both of them were stealing glances at the pink stain on top of his head, where Angel couldn’t see. Wes gave them both a reproving look.

Harmony came inside, her usual bouncy demeanor subdued. “Here’s more blood, boss. Baboon.”

Angel grunted in acknowledgement. Harmony had been right behind Fred earlier that day. He’d yelled at her for not keeping Buffy out of his office. When Harmony reminded him that he was the one who let the Slayer in, he yelled at her more. She had actually been the one to shave off the Mohawk, using his electric razor, the same one Spike used to give him the ridiculous haircut. Angel snatched the offending styling tool away from her and hurled it at one of the damaged windows. Since then, Harmony had been mostly silent, a blessing, really. All he needed from her was to keep the blood coming so that his injuries would heal.

When Harmony just stood there, he looked away from the monitor again. “You’re still here.”

“I thought you might –”

“Leave, Harmony.” Angel didn’t look as she huffed and spun on one stiletto, muttering about ungrateful, bossy people. “Fred?” Angel asked, his eyes locked on his image. “Can you get one of these cameras for me?”

“Sure!” If it would get him to use his computer more, she’d gladly requisition a camera.

The door opened again, revealing Lorne. “Hey, Angelcakes. I called in a few favors, and George Clooney’s makeup artist will be here first thing in the morning. She charges a thousand an hour, but she’ll cover up your boo-boo so even you won’t know it’s there.”

“I’ll know it’s there,” he glared, his eyes leaving his image for a moment. “And it isn’t a boo-boo.” Angel gave Lorne an imploring look. “You think she can make it so the swelling doesn’t show?” His jaw wasn’t broken, but it was a near thing. 

“I’m positive. She’s a magician, and she has the Golden Globe to prove it.”

“How are your other injuries?” Fred asked. She’d been a little shocked by what the Slayer did to Angel, frankly. She seemed sad and uncertain down in the lab. But, then, Buffy had manhandled her in the elevator. She and Spike looked so happy before they left, though.

Angel’s glare faded after a second of using it on her; Fred was just worried about him. “They’re fine.” Angel wasn’t going to admit to it, but he planned to roll his replacement office chair to the elevator instead of trying to walk there. Once he got to his penthouse, he’d use it like a wheelchair. No one would ever know how beat up he was.

“How’s the tooth? Hanging in there?” Lorne asked.

“That was lucky, Harmony knowing to put it in milk.” Wesley, finding no traction with Angel, turned to Gunn.

“Yeah, I never knew her father was a dentist.”

Angel ignored them and gave Lorne a tight smile, hating his sympathy. “The tooth is fine.” He lifted his cup of blood in a mock-toast. “Vampire healing, right?”

“Yes, well, the makeup will take care of your meetings tomorrow. Now that we know it’s a demon tattoo, we know we need a potion to dissolve the adhesive spell. By tomorrow afternoon, you should be back to your normal self.” Wesley frowned. “Unless it’s one of those tattoos that require an erasure spell. I think that requires three or four castings before the ink fades.”

“I’m sure it’s the adhesive kind,” Fred put in hastily.

Gunn caught her plea for help. “Shave a little closer,” he suggested to Angel, “and we’ll tell everyone we’re twins.” He ran a hand over his own smooth scalp, then nodded at Wesley. “English? You wanna get in on this? Triplets?”

“I think not.”

“And that’s my cue to take my beautiful coif far away,” Lorne said, heading out the door. “See you in the a.m., dearies.”

Angel didn’t watch him leave, too busy staring at the screen and tucking his jaw toward his neck. Was he getting a bit of a double chin?

Fred slid off the side of the desk, deciding she’d just leave her laptop. Angel’s office was the safest place in the whole building, after all. “I need to get some sleep if I want to function tomorrow. See y’all in the morning.”

Still close to the door, Wesley stepped aside. “I’ll walk you out.”

“Yeah, I should leave you to it,” Gunn said, hiding his smile as Angel turned his head to one side, then the other. Give someone without a reflection a mirror, there was bound to be vanity. The cell phone in his jacket buzzed once, then again a couple of seconds later. “What now?” he murmured as he fished it from his pocket.

“Thanks, Gunn,” Angel said, looking up at his friend as he realized from the quiet that everyone else was gone. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be so upset. Crazy ex, and this will all be over tomorrow.” His eyes drifted back to his image. “No one will ever know.” 

Eve did, but she had a lot to lose if word got around that a single Slayer bested her. And she would never tell the other part, either, that Buffy didn’t think he could have worn the amulet. Even though he’d had his soul for so much longer, Buffy seemed to think Spike’s was better, just because he was guilty for something and went looking for it. Angel had no idea how Buffy got so twisted up; she seemed fine when he saw her that last time in Sunnydale and much the same at the Hyperion. A little quieter, maybe.

The sound of a cell made him look up. “Something going on?”

Gunn’s phone vibrated again. “Uhh…” The suave, lawyerly veneer was gone, and he looked flummoxed as he glanced up. “Naw, man. Just the usual.”

“Go on,” Angel said, waving magnanimously as the lawyer’s mobile buzzed again. “I know you’re busy.”

Gunn’s eyes went back to the phone, where the same attachment came in from yet another contact. “Yeah… Busy.” He considered telling the boss about the photograph making the rounds of Wolfram and Hart, but decided it wasn’t his responsibility. Let someone else tell him. “Sleep well, man.”

“You, too,” Angel said absently. Now that he was alone, his eyes settled on the tattoo across his forehead. LIAR. He went over some of the awful things Buffy said, her terrible accusations, then pushed them aside.

It wasn’t as though Buffy had done anything permanent. He was so lucky to have people who cared about him. Gunn, Fred, Wesley, and Lorne had all been there for him today. Even Harmony had been nice, getting a glass of milk to hold his tooth until medical got there, shaving off the terrible fuchsia Mohawk. He made a mental note to start being nicer to his annoying assistant, maybe even thank her for her help.

Standing by the elevators, Gunn opened up the attachment from yet another lawyer, someone he barely knew on the fourth floor in mergers and acquisitions. It was a clearly identifiable picture of Angel, taken right after Harmony started to cut off the Mohawk. He sported a single tuft of fuchsia hair on top of his head, the livid LIAR blazing across his forehead, and his angry mouth open to reveal a dark space where his missing tooth should be. 

He loved the grouchy old vampire, but Angel could be a pompous ass sometimes. Only Cordy could really get him back in line. But this… This picture from the unimaginative pseudonym ‘Serenity Kimball’ might be useful the next time Angel started thinking he was infallible. So Gunn forced away his grin and saved the attachment, for friendship purposes only. 

He just wished that Cordelia was around to see the picture.

***

The next week was much calmer for the Summers family, only involving a fired limo driver, buying a car, interring a skeleton in a nice mausoleum, preparing a Thanksgiving feast in a minimally-equipped condominium kitchen that did not include a ricer or a roasting pan, introducing a vampire to the epic glories of Black Friday sales, touring seven houses with seven different real estate agents, replacing the bedframe in Buffy’s bedroom and finding a dumpster several blocks away to surreptitiously get rid of the broken one, setting up an estate sale for the Amara treasure, dealing with a fit of nerves and regret leading to the reluctant admission by Spike that even demon tattoo ink could be removed, finding swim trunks that didn’t make Spike look either pasty or like a wanker, extracting Buffy from an incipient catfight with a silicone-boobed skank who wouldn’t keep her eyes off men who were obviously taken, and teaching a vampire how to surf.

“I’m bored,” Dawn complained, throwing down the television remote and flumping back against the couch.

Buffy looked over the kitchen counter into the living room part of the condo and frowned. “Then come help me figure out this recipe.”

“Fine.” Dawn came into the kitchen with ill grace. “Better than being bored.”

“You won’t be bored in a few weeks, when school starts.”

“Ugh.”

“I’m saying, enjoy your freedom while you have it. And hand me the whisk.”

“Which whisk?”

“The whisk.” She frowned. “We have more than one?”

“A round one and a skinny one.”

“The condo has two whisks, but not a ricer?” Buffy asked in disbelief. She was still bitter about that.

“Yeah, priorities, right?” Dawn chose the narrow whisk and handed it over. “You look nice this morning.” 

Buffy clapped a hand to her neck for no reason that Dawn could see. “Why?” her sister asked suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you look less like a bitchy, starved raccoon than usual,” Dawn said with exaggerated politeness.

“Oh, I’m the bitchy one?”

“Why did you touch your neck?”

“No reason.” Buffy got very busy and rummaged in the lower cabinets to bring out a pot.

“Did he do it?”

“Do what? I mean, no.” Buffy glared at her.

Dawn smirked. “Yeah, there’s been biting. That was probably what went down the night you broke your bed.”

“That’s not – Nothing went down.”

“I bet at least one of you did.”

“God, Dawn! Shut up!”

“Why would I, if you’re going to be this easy to tease?”

The Slayer growled at her and picked up a knife.

Dawn lifted her hands warily. “Shutting up.” Buffy attacked an onion on the counter, chopping it into progressively smaller bits. “What are you making, anyway?”

“An omelet.”

“Why do you need a pot, then?”

“For the eggs. Duh.”

“Oookay.” Dawn headed back to the couch, muttering about eating out yet again. “Oh, hey, Spike. You’re up.”

“Bit,” he rumbled, scratching at his chest absently as he came into the living area. He was paying off a sleep debt, since he hadn’t been able to sleep at all as a ghost and not much in the last days before Sunnydale became a crater. Though he’d stopped smoking, he checked his pockets out of habit, coming up with his lighter and a single coin. He considered the wheat penny blearily. “Has it been a week since that dodgy Whistler guy came around?”

“The dodgy one that gave you a treasure? And, yeah, I think today makes a week.”

“Huh.” Spike shrugged and dropped the charm back into the front pocket of his jeans. He wandered into the kitchen, yawning. “’Lo, love.”

“I smell like onions,” Buffy warned, even as she smiled and wrapped him in a hug, the knife still in her hand.

Dawn sprawled on the couch and read one page of the trashy novel she’d picked up for beach reading before she judged they’d been quiet for too long. Without even looking, she hollered, “Stop kissing! I want breakfast sometime before dinner.”

Buffy broke away from Spike reluctantly. “I hate it when we run out of cereal,” she admitted in an undertone. Her cell phone rang. “Here,” she said, handing the knife to her boyfriend. “Maybe that’s the realtor who handles that cool house in Pismo Beach.” She headed toward their bedroom where her mobile was charging.

Spike took the knife but shook his head. “Not sure I want to live somewhere named ‘Pismo.’ Looks odd on one’s mail.”

“It’s a perfectly good Chumash word,” Dawn called. “And you come from a country where half the places are named cock-something. Cockbush, Cockermouth, Cockernhoe...”

“Well, don’t feature living in any of those places, either. ‘Pismo.’ How do you know it’s a Chumash word? Do you speak Chumash, then?” he challenged. He pulled a bell pepper closer to the onion and chopped it up with several quick, if noisy, slices.

“No, I’m from here. You just get an ear for the language from place names.” 

In the relative quiet of her bedroom, Buffy’s eyebrows rose as she snatched up the phone and saw the name. She had texted her new number to Willow and Andrew after getting mobile service in the U.S. “Hey, Willow. How are you?”

“Good. How are you?”

“Great. Oh! I used the memory spell. It worked just the way I hoped. I should have called you right after to say thanks.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. No side effects?” Willow queried, sounding anxious. “No obsessive thoughts or anything?”

“No.” Buffy’s enhanced memories of her history with Willow prodded her into a declaration, however. “I don’t think I’m going to take relationship advice from you after this, though.”

“Huh?”

“A lot of memories, things I forgot. You pushed me to get together with Angel, and you really pushed me toward Riley,” Buffy said. “You pick out great people for yourself,” though privately she didn’t think Kennedy was in the same league as Oz and Tara, “but not so much for me.”

“I really pushed?”

“You did.”

“Oh, wow. Well, I’ll stay away from the push and just be there with the support from now on.”

That would be a change. “Sounds good.” The conversation reminded of another quarter where support would have been nice. “So, have you heard from Xander?”

“No. Andrew said he’s found a couple more Slayers, but he didn’t talk to him, either.”

“I hope he’s okay.”

“Me, too. But you and Dawn are fine?”

“Uh, sure.” Buffy frowned. “Is something going on?”

“No. Not here, I mean.” Willow’s voice became a little firmer, more businesslike. “I’m at headquarters, though. Giles asked me to call to see if you knew anything about what happened in Los Angeles.”

“At Wolfram and Hart?” she blurted.

When she didn’t go on, Willow tried again, “So, you do know something?”

“No. I just always think of who’s there. Something happened in L.A.?” Though it was too late to pretend total ignorance, she supposed.

“Oh, uh, Giles wants to talk to you, Buffy. Hang on a second.”

Her grip on the mobile tightened, making the hinge creak. “Giles!” She made her voice brighter, even as she felt her shoulders hunch.

The whole time she carried on the phone conversation, Buffy felt she was split in two, observing herself. None of her friends called her until now (though, admittedly, she did nothing more than provide contact information to them). Her old Watcher asked twice if she had been to Los Angeles, but not once about Dawn or how they were settling into their new life. She listened to his report on the unfolding destruction of Wolfram and Hart across the globe and learned that he’d already contacted Angel. Giles said nothing about Spike, so neither did she.

Buffy realized that the past week of her life had been the very happiest she’d ever been as an adult. No one was pressuring her to make decisions, to do her duty. Which she did; Spike drove them to some big, active cemeteries where they slayed hapless fledges and sparred with each other to make it interesting. No one was second-guessing her or expressing doubt about her thoughts or emotions. She was safe in their little condo, safe to try things, to fail, to get angry or sad without having to hide her feelings.

She felt safe.

She felt loved.

She had not felt this familiar tight, boxed-in feeling until Willow called, until she heard Giles’ voice. Until the last seven years of love and disappointment, of resentment and violence, of binding ties and searing betrayal wrapped around her once again.

“Sounds like a good kind of development, Giles,” she told him firmly, “but I don’t know what caused it.”

Buffy was free, and she was going to stay that way.

Dawn watched Buffy come down the hallway, holding her cell phone in one limp hand. “Was that the realtor?”

The Slayer shook her head. “It was Giles. Well, Willow, too.”

Dawn and Spike exchanged a worried look before returning their attention to Buffy. “What’s up?” Dawn asked, beating Spike to the question by a second.

“Um, the Wolfram and Hart building in L.A. collapsed. So did the one in London. And the one in Paris, Rome, and Toronto… All of them, I guess. The coven is tracking the remnants of a lot of dark magic. They say it’s like the power that fueled Wolfram and Hart just got… vacuumed up.”

“Oh, wow.”

“Giles said that he talked to Angel, and Willow talked to Fred. The whole team is back at that old hotel. Cordelia, too. She’s out of the coma.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Dawn exclaimed. In her monk-memories, Cordelia was always sweet to her, in a condescending way.

“Guess that Eve bint’s fingertip worked, whatever the Powers did.” Spike frowned. “We need to go do cleanup? Demons running rampant or anything?”

Buffy pulled a surprised face. “No, he didn’t say anything about danger or sacred duty. Just asked if I had anything to do with it.”

“What did you tell him?” Dawn asked curiously.

Buffy shrugged and gave her two favorite people a private smile. “That my trip to L.A. wasn’t about shutting down an evil law firm. I didn’t say anything about Spike,” she assured them. That could wait; right now was their private time. Maybe they’d send out a family Christmas card, announce it that way. Nothing would say ‘done deal’ like the three of them in matching holiday sweaters. “I reminded him I’m semi-retired and told him if another apocalypse happens,” she beamed at them and held up her cell phone, “text me.”

Buffy’s phone buzzed.

The three of them froze for a moment. “Jinx,” Dawn whispered.

Opening her phone, Buffy immediately relaxed. “It’s from Andrew.”

“Oh, thank God. Nothing important.” Dawn slumped against the couch.

“‘Your ex is Internet famous.’” Buffy read the message aloud, frowning as she opened the attachment. Her face worked comically, then she leaned over the back of the couch so Spike and Dawn could see the small screen and the image of a partially-Mohawked, tattooed Angel with a missing tooth.

“Ooh,” Dawn said approvingly. “That’s even better than the ones you took, Buffy.” She gave it a critical onceover. “That look of horror on his face really adds something.”

“That tuft of hair… Why would he shave it off and leave that?” Spike’s upper lip lifted in unconscious disgust. “He looks like a clown.”

Buffy winced. “I never meant for it to be… public. More of a private message.”

“Course not, love,” Spike soothed. “Wouldn’t worry about it. Nothing permanent. The git’ll soon be back to his normal self, ’cept for the hair. And that’s mostly on me.” He gave her a smile. “I chopped up the pepper for you.”

“Thanks.” Buffy closed the phone and gave him a kiss before heading back to the kitchen. “Omelets coming right up!”

Waiting until her sister was busy clattering cookware, Dawn grinned. “Nothing ever really goes away on the Internet, does it?”

Spike leaned his head close to hers and whispered. “How much you reckon it costs to lease one of those big billboards they use to advertise movies in Los Angeles?”

She gave him an evil grin. “Who cares? It’ll be worth it.”

“The Slayer can never know.”

Dawn hooked his pinkie finger with her own. “Our little secret.”

***

Epilogue

Los Angeles

Late December 2003

“How’s Angel doing?” Fred asked sympathetically, getting into Cordy’s small car. 

Cordelia’s mouth tightened at the mention of The Dumbass. She’d yelled at Angel every day she’d been back for giving away his son. Despite her own hazy, uncomfortable memories of being trapped while Jasmine used her body to seduce the boy she thought of as her son, you just don’t give away family.

When Wolfram and Hart fell, the memory spell broke for all of them, but thankfully – and strangely – not for Connor’s new family and friends. Once they escaped the collapsing building and panicky, murderous minions (Wesley pushing a suddenly-awake Cordelia in a wheelchair, and she’d never forgive him for not using a sheet or something to cover the hospital gown, the only thing she wore), all of the Angel Investigations people had taken turns yelling at Angel. Cordy reserved the right to do it daily. And sometimes hourly.

“He’s fine,” she said finally. “Brooding.” Cordelia changed the topic as she pulled away from LAX arrivals. “How was your flight?”

“Full.” Fred didn’t want to travel during the holidays ever again.

“How are your parents?”

“Good. We made tamales. It’s traditional for Christmas back home.” Fred smoothed her skirt nervously. “Did you talk to Connor?”

“I did. He doesn’t want to see any of us yet. For a while, he talked about skipping the next quarter at Stanford, but he’s going to go back.”

“I imagine it must have been a shock. I mean, it was a shock for us, and it was just a year of memories. His whole life wasn’t what he thought.”

“Humph,” Cordelia said. “Dumbass.” She didn’t feel the need to specify; the dumbass was obviously Angel. She merged into highway traffic with the ease of a California native and the assurance that came from driving an already dented car. “You know that whole thing with Buffy, just before I woke up? You know why she did it? He did the same thing to her, took some of her memories away. I made him tell me,” she growled. “‘Delia,’ my butt. He was obsessed with her way too long.”

“Oh.” Fred frowned. That explained a lot about the ‘LIAR’ tattoo, even if she still found it hard to believe Angel deserved that kind of revenge. She fell quiet. Angel took her memories, too, and she didn’t want to put a tattoo on his forehead.

Though the word ‘jackass’ would be just about right, if she did.

Spike had called her before Wolfram and Hart disappeared, leaving a number, and she’d already visited him and his little family. Fred had to tell her friends, because they deserved to know the Powers were involved in bringing down the law firm. Spike wanted her to bring Lorne next time, and Buffy asked if maybe Wes would like to see her, now that both of them were free of the Watchers’ Council. Fred was hesitant, though. The guys weren’t as discreet as she was, and Spike and Buffy were obviously a couple. Along with Buffy’s funny little sister, they had settled into a nice house in a quiet neighborhood in Pismo Beach and seemed incredibly happy. 

Fred envied them. The Angel Investigations people were not happy, not after Angel’s betrayal. They were all still at the Hyperion because they didn’t have any other place to go, so things were tense. That’s why Fred decided it was a good year to visit her parents for Christmas. Since everyone was still so angry at Angel, she was glad to have that option. But she was back now. Time to face everything.

“Gunn is taking his GED test next month,” Cordelia said, coming out of her snit enough to make conversation.

“Oh, that’s great!” Fred enthused. “He talked about doing that. Is he still going to go to law school?”

“No. The whole law thing is fading. He’s thinking about social work.”

“Well,” Fred said staunchly, “he’ll be great at it.”

“What about you? Did you send in the application to USC?”

“I did.” She looked down at her hands. “I don’t think I’ll get a graduate assistantship, not this time of the year. I may wait until fall.” Fred glanced at Cordelia. “It’s weird, you know? I’m so much more confident for having headed up a corporate research division. It wasn’t all bad.”

Cordy nodded. “Lorne is starting a talent agency for singers. He says it’s cheaper than trying to reopen Caritas.”

“What about Wes?” She tried to sound casual.

“Oh, he’s almost as broody as Dumbass. All that guilt about not realizing the ‘father kills the son’ prophecy was fake.”

Fred looked out the window. “Well, he should have realized. Or at least, I still think that sometimes. Then I remember that Angel really is capable of some awful things. What he did was so low, you couldn’t put a rug under it. So, I guess Wes wasn’t wrong, not really.”

“Both of them are idiots. We just… kind of fell apart back then,” Cordelia said with a sigh. “We’ll get past it. Time, a lot of groveling, a lot of shopping sprees. We’ll get past it, get the agency on its feet again.”

Cordelia really had her tail up. “It won’t be the same.”

“No. But it won’t be an evil law firm, either.” She scowled. “Wolfram and Hart! What was he thinking? He wasn’t thinking! Like that was the easy way out. Dumbass,” she finished darkly.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Fred said sincerely.

“Me, too.”

“Do you feel cheated? Not being a higher power?”

“God, no. It was unbelievably boring. And the Powers have no concept of fashion. I mean none.”

Fred was still looking out of the window. She leaned forward abruptly, staring at a billboard big as Dallas, set high along the roadside. A tuft of clown-like fuchsia hair, the mouth with a knocked-out tooth... Oh, lord. “Is that…?” Then she could read the word tattooed across the broad forehead.

“The picture Harmony sent out?” Cordelia’s face set in lines of grim satisfaction. “Yes. Yes, it is. It’s been there since before Christmas.”

“How did it get on a billboard?” Fred asked, bewildered, swiveling in the seat until she couldn’t see it anymore.

“I told Angel he should have given Harmony that letter of recommendation,” Cordelia replied. “Dumbass.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hosannahs to the fabulous PencilComet for her wonderful beta work. Because of her good eye and honest criticism, this story is stronger, deeper, and far more straightforward. Thank you, my amazing, matriculating friend! Any errors are on me, from post-beta tinkering.


End file.
